


Help Me, Help You

by OriginalCeenote



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: And eventually smut, Asthmatic Teenaged Steve Rogers, Bakeries, Beefy Steve, Bucky Can't Keep His Hands Off of Steve Rogers, Celebrity/Personal Assistant AU, Coffee, Dog Lover Steve Rogers, Fluff, High School Friends to Enemies to Coworkers to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Skating, Light Angst, M/M, Nineties Kids, OCD Health Nut Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky, Secret Santa gift for dance-in-moonlight on Tumblr, Slow Burn, Steve stars in his own cooking show, Stucky Secret Santa 2020 Exchange, grumpy bucky, it was supposed to be a oneshot, sorry it's late, the author is a horrible person, yet here we are
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:35:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28381806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/pseuds/OriginalCeenote
Summary: “So, you think you’re a big shot, now?” Bucky folded his arms across his beefy chest, and Steve noticed with a mix of admiration and resentment that the cranberry red henley was stretched snugly over his pecs. Barnes wore his shirts that tight onpurpose, damn it. Steve planted his hands on his hips and shrugged.“A half a dozen magazine covers in the past year alone don’t refute that assumption.”“And now, you’ve got a big head, too.” That was humor and scorn in Bucky’s voice, reflected in those icy gray eyes of his.“You’re such ajerk!Steve barked, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he was even letting Barnes take up one more minute of his time, let alone taking him on as an employee.It was a match made inhell.Or, the reunited old friends to enemies to lovers, celebrity/personal assistant Christmas AU that no one asked for.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Original Male Character (brief), previous Sam Wilson/Steve Rogers
Comments: 38
Kudos: 67





	1. A Reason to Get Up Every Day and Put on Pants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dance_in_moonlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dance_in_moonlight/gifts).
  * Inspired by [FANART: Help Me, Help You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28345038) by [OriginalCeenote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/pseuds/OriginalCeenote). 



> This is my Stucky Secret Santa present for dance-in-moonlight. I hope this gives you some warm fuzzies. You picked SO many of my favorite prompts.

Steve grumbled to himself as he dumped the rest of the beer and vodka bottles into the large trash bag, hoping that was the last of them. His house still reeked of stale alcohol, and crisp morning air swept inside from the kitchen windows, slid open wide to mitigate the odors. “Jesus, Brock,” he hissed under his breath. “Why? How is this okay?”

He came home to a shambles on top of his usual jet lag. Steve no sooner waved goodbye to his limo driver, Happy, before he heard his dog barking and suddenly found himself thrown backwards as Ralph, his chocolate lab/Weimaraner mix, leapt onto him and greeted him with eager kisses. “Aw, boy, what’re you doing out here? Huh?” Ralph whined and wagged his tail, unsatisfied until Steve let go of his rolling suitcase’s handle so he could bend down and give him some love. Steve scratched his fingers through his thick, lush fur, realizing that the dog hadn’t been to the groomer’s yet. “You look like a woolly mammoth.”

All of the warning bells went off in his head before he even went inside. Brock’s truck was parked inside Steve’s two-car garage, while Steve’s Navigator was parked out front, right in front of the yard where it could get hit by the sprinkler and end up covered in water spots. What was the point of hiring a driver to take him to the airport if his personal assistant wasn’t going to park his car in the garage where it belonged? Better yet, Steve had left it there himself the night before his trip, hadn’t he? He’d taken Sam out on one of their “not dates” for a late dinner - Sam insisted on calling them that, now that they weren’t a thing anymore, and it still stung, but sometimes, they just liked to pass the time, and talking to Sam still felt natural - and he _knew_ he parked the Navigator in the garage. Steve rounded the other side of the car and noticed the huge dent in the left side of the bumper.

“Brock!” he growled. “Fuck!”

Steve felt his aggravation graduate by degrees to percolating, indignant rage as he turned the front doorknob and found it unlocked. Brock hadn’t even bothered to arm the security system? Yet, that explained how Ralph got out, didn’t it? Steve tripped over a pile of unsorted mail that the postal carrier had dropped through the slot and that never made it to Steve’s kitchen counter. He bent down and scooped it up while Ralph whined, nosing at his arm to make Steve lift it up and hug him like he usually did. 

“Gimme a minute, bud,” he promised. Ralph licked his cheek, and Steve accepted his kisses, because it was nice to have someone that was glad to see him, whom he didn’t have to pay to say and do all the right things. Dogs didn’t bring drama to the table. 

Steve didn’t blame the mess on the dog, though, when he took a good, long look at his kitchen. “Holy _shit._ ”

Leftover food sitting half-eaten around the counters made pungent odors waft up to Steve’s nostrils, earning his grimace. “Seriously?” he muttered as he picked up an empty Haagen-Daz container from the kitchen island. Meaty juices stained the butcher’s block. Cold, congealed grease spattered the surface of his rangetop. 

So many empty bottles. So much overflowing trash. There was a pair of shoes he didn’t recognize lying on his welcome mat beside Brock’s kicks.

Normally, Brock would be in the dining room, ready with Steve’s messages and a list of errands he planned to take off of Steve’s plate, because that was what Steve paid him for. Or, so he _assumed_. And during those first few weeks that Brock had worked for him, everything was working out fine. Once Steve left the studio for the night, the rest of his life ran like a well-oiled machine. Brock picked up his dry cleaning, his groceries, and his takeout. Brock administered Steve’s inbox for his fan mail from his show’s Web site. “Steve’s Bitchen Kitchen” was the hit of all the streaming cable services that ran it. Steve’s line of cookware outsold Bobby Flay’s at Target and Kohl’s. 

Brock occasionally stayed at Steve’s, which made it simpler to get a hold of him for things like house sitting or what-have-you. When Brock’s condo needed to be fumigated for an ant infestation, he bunked with Steve in his mother-in-law unit out back, simply making himself at home. Being Steve’s personal assistant came with certain perks. Brock name-dropped his way into the best nightclubs, shows, studio audiences, conventions, gyms, cruises and restaurants just by flashing his American Express platinum card with the Bitchen Kitchen accountholder name embossed in gold across its gleaming surface.

Lately, though.

Brock seemed to have gotten a little _too_ comfortable with their arrangement. He was taking liberties. Showing up a few minutes late in the mornings, claiming to have gotten stuck in traffic. Steve’s inbox became the victim of malware because Brock started using the fan mail address to download porn; Steve had to pay a computer cleaning service an arm and a leg to purge it from his servers after everything crashed and stayed down for three days. Customers who attempted to purchase tickets to be in his studio audience weren’t able to, and Steve lost money on those tapings.

Brock also had some interesting friends. When Steve wasn’t filming his streams, he liked to live quietly. The occasional autograph seeker didn’t bother him much, but he only tolerated it in public. He couldn’t expect the entire Whole Foods store down the block from him to close down the whole works for him every time he shopped there so he could buy pre-chopped mirepoix and boxed figs in blissful privacy. No. Of course not. But, Steve still cherished his privacy _at home_. No photographers. No Instagram photo ops. No stalking him when he was going out to retrieve his morning paper or walking his dog.

That was part of the reason why he hired a personal assistant in the first place. Brock’s friends inevitably became Steve’s houseguests. When that happened, Steve ended up being gawked at over his cornflakes and coffee.

It was getting old.

So.

Frickin’.

Old.

One of Brock’s conquests - houseguests - was drinking from Steve’s favorite coffee mug when he came home from the gym, wanting nothing more than to strip his sweat-stained clothes and crawl into the shower. She just tittered at him and cooed, “I hope you don’t mind?”

“Actually. Um. Yeah. Kind of. That’s… my mug. Let’s just… not do that.”

Because Steve’s “Don’t Talk to Me Before I’ve Had my Coffee” mug was a gift from Sam when they were still dating, and it was sacred. Drinking from it was his morning ritual. Steve needed his rituals to function. Just like he needed to hang his housekeys on the same hook as soon as he walked into the house, set his shoes on the indoor welcome mat, with the toes facing toward the front door, or he had to open his bills on the kitchen counter with his green oven mitt hanging above it on the wall. That was how he remembered everything that he read, remembering every dollar amount and due date. Brock’s lady was smudging the cup with raisin colored lipstick. Once she left with Brock, Steve carried the mug to the sink by its handle, pinched between his finger and thumb, far out from his body, as though it would burn him. Having random women seeing him in his disheveled state when he didn’t invite them over, but for crying out loud, _leave his mug alone._

This was one of those times where Steve just wanted to relax in his own space, but everything felt out of place, and to top it off, he heard a strange scuffling upstairs.

“BROCK?” Steve called out as he jogged up to the second floor, pausing a moment on the landing. “Brock? Hey. What’s going on? Ralph got out, did he go through the fence? Do I need to get it fixed? He should have been inside, anyway, but…”

Steve’s voice trailed off as he found Brock in his room, bare-assed and hopping into a pair of discarded pants. Steve’s bed was unmade and rumpled, with the costly silk damask duvet shoved halfway onto the floor along with all the decorative cushions. The bedroom smelled just as much like stale alcohol as the kitchen did, and Steve could tell Brock was probably sweating it out of his pores. His hair was a wreck, and Steve saw long, shallow scratches down Brock’s back and the beginnings of fresh hickeys on his throat when he turned around. 

“Steve-O! Hey, buddy! Hey.” Brock faced him sheepishly, immediately glancing around the room for a moment. Steve’s brow furrowed, and he folded his arms over his chest.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing, buddy. Hoo!” Brock scrubbed his palm down his face awkwardly. “Late night! Late start. Anyway, since I’m already here, uh… I mean. I might need to run a little errand, first.”

“Like what?”

“Like-”

Before Brock could explain himself, or explain _any of this_ , Steve heard the low flush of the toilet from the adjoining master bathroom, and he saw Tim step out, glistening and damp, his waist swathed in one of Steve’s Egyptian cotton towels.

“Are we gonna have time to stop for coffee, or… oh, shit.”

Steve’s stomach dropped down into his shoes, and an ugly rash of hot prickles ran down the back of his neck.

“Coffee.” Steve’s voice sounded far away to his own ears.

“Steve…” Brock began, but Steve held up his hand.

“How were you even going to explain this?”

“Didn’t think we’d have to. We just overslept,” Tim admitted. His expression was resigned, and if Steve didn’t know better, just a little smug.

“Overslept.”

Ralph whined behind Steve, sitting in the doorway and thumping his tail on the floor impatiently. He sensed that his favorite human was distressed.

The next few minutes were a blur.

Steve pushed past them both and began gathering up Brock’s things wherever he found them, shoving them into a duffel. He didn’t even care that it was _his_ duffel. He saw an unfamiliar toothbrush and crammed that into the bag, along with some Axe spray that he didn’t recognize. Brock had set up camp in _Steve’s room_ like he was fucking _master of the house_ and banged _Steve’s boyfriend_ while he was on a business trip. 

“Get dressed,” Steve barked, and Ralph trotted out of the room with a low bark.

“Steve-O-”

“Don’t, Brock. Just don’t.”

Tim found his own clothes among the pile on the floor and retreated back to the bathroom. Brock just stood there, scraping his fingers through his hair, which was a wreck. His eyes were puffy, evidence of his wild night.

“It just happened.”

“No, it didn’t. You two planned this. Don’t stand there and lie to me.”

“No, seriously! Steve! We just… I was working, all right? Tim came over to help me out. He was gonna give me his opinion on the new designs for the merchandise you’re rolling out next month!”

“Why wouldn’t he give _me_ his opinion?” Steve pointed out. 

“Because half the time, you’re not around,” Tim interjected.

“That’s an excuse. And that’s my towel. Get dressed. Give that back. Just… don’t use my towels. _Don’t touch my stuff._ This is _my stuff_.” Steve couldn’t wait for both of them to leave, because his whole room still reeked of beer and sex, and he wanted to throw open the windows and fumigate the whole thing. Or light some incense. Anything. Anything to purge his space of what Brock had done.

“You’d be less uptight if you just got laid more often, Rogers,” Brock jeered.

“Uptight. I’m uptight? Know what, Brock? You’re right. I’m feeling uptight because my assistant keeps screwing me over. You’re supposed to be helping _me,_ not _helping yourself_ to my house. And my beer. And my _partner_. And, y’know what? You didn’t even take out the trash, Brock.” Steve opened the window, took the duffel with Brock and Tim’s things, and promptly threw all of it out. “There. I took care of it for you. So. Go ahead. Show yourselves out.”

Tim barely managed to hop into his boxers, and he exclaimed in shocked outrage, “What the FUCK, Steve?!”

“Just give me back my towel,” Steve insisted. “I’ll hang it up. Just get out.”

*

Steve turned off his phone for the next forty-eight hours, just to decompress.

He spent the time scheduling a cleaning service to come and sanitize everything from top to bottom and took Ralph to the groomers. Steve went through the files on his computer and deleted all of Brock’s folders and removed him as the administrator of the server for his Bitchen Kitchen main page and recipe blog. He also cancelled his corporate gym membership, employee discounts and called the insurance company to have them offer Brock the COBRA package.

As much as Steve hurt, both from the betrayal and the overall lack of consideration from his trusted assistant and most recent boyfriend, Steve felt like a weight had been lifted, and like he could breathe for the first time in several months. No more Brock, and no more of his entourage and their constant intrusion into his life. 

Then, there were the other things wouldn’t miss, like the way Brock would dismiss his needs. He ignored Steve’s rituals and other devices that helped him to function, often making fun of them. He insisted over and over again that Steve was “uptight” and just “needed to loosen up,” but that just… sometimes, that just wasn’t an option. Sometimes, Brock reminded Steve of Gilmore Hodge, a kid in middle school who always used to make fun of Steve for packing his own lunch for school instead of just going up and buying it from the hot lunch line. Steve had more food allergies than he could shake a stick at, a mother who was a registered nurse, and an immune system that had some very specific ideas about how many days out of the year that Steve was allowed to not be sick. 

Steve definitely still needed an assistant, though. There was so much to nail down every day with his busy schedule, the upkeep of his home, the needs of his job, bookings for magazine spreads, public appearances… it was a lot. It was just a lot. Steve felt overwhelmed and struggled to focus. 

Sam called him when he was in the middle of stress cleaning his kitchen _right after the housekeeper left_ , scrubbing the grout on his tile countertops with an old toothbrush and some X-14. He wore the rubber cleaning gloves he’d rescued from his mother’s old things back when he’d packed up her house.

“Hey. I tried to call you earlier, you didn’t pick up.”

“Busy. Been busy since I got back to town.”

“I thought the whole point of going away on vacation was to feel more relaxed when you got back,” Sam accused.

“It was a working trip, Sam. If I’m going to show my viewers how to make enfrijoladas, I have to know how to make them right myself.” Steve spent three weeks working in the kitchens in Michoacan and several of the neighboring towns, practically living in the different restaurants’ kitchens, soaking up the local dialect and color as he learned how to make each of their signature dishes. It was educational, but it wasn’t as leisurely as Sam assumed. Steve didn’t spend as much time on the beaches as the travel agent assured him he would. There wasn’t much point when Steve didn’t have anyone to share it all with. Tim had ducked out of going with him, claiming work obligations, even though he had been all over Steve to plan something for the two of them for what felt like forever.

“When are you gonna make me some?” Sam demanded.

“When things settle down. I promise. I miss you.”

“Likewise, Steve. Just take it easy, okay? Hey, have you called that temp agency back? Why not have them send over someone else until you can really take the time to interview someone permanent?”

“I can’t stand temps. It’s never a good fit.”

“Might help to just get someone to help you get a few things off your plate.”

“I can manage fine on my own until I get someone full-time.”

“Famous last words. Steve. Calm down. We both know you’re probably manic right now, bleaching the crap out of something right now instead of facing any of the ten thousand things on your to-do list.”

“No, I’m not,” Steve lied as he chucked the toothbrush into the sink, even though Sam wasn’t even standing there with him.

“I know you,” Sam insisted smoothly, and Steve could hear the smile in his voice. He tried not to resent it. “Relax. Calm the fuck down for five seconds, Steve. Five SECONDS.”

“I’m calm. I’m absolutely copacetic.”

“Promise me you’ll call the temp agency.”

“Sam, don’t be-”

“Steve. Promise me. Don’t be stubborn about this. You need help. So, get help. Have them send someone over who isn’t a psycho. It’s their job to screen the employees and to send over a warm body that will tell you ‘Yes, sir. No, sir. Right away, sir.’”

“I just hate using an agency. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“If you throw the posting out onto a Web site, you’ll get dozens of applicants and have to interview them all yourself,” Sam pointed out. “You know how you are around strangers, Steve. And shaking hands. And-”

“Fair enough. Touche, Sam.”

Because Sam was right. Steve hated all of those things _so much_. All of that sounded like his idea of hell.

“I’ll tell them the position is temp to hire. Thirty day trial period, then they go onto my payroll with benefits.”

“They get the key to the castle!”

“Nah. That’s how I ended up with Brock.” Steve went back to scrubbing his grout.

He hoped his new assistant would take the job seriously and be at least _somewhat_ professional, and that he wouldn’t ride Steve about his compulsion or the things he needed to cope. 

*

“So, when are you coming home for Christmas?”

“I don’t know yet, Ma.”

“Well, start planning that now,” Sarah nagged. “Don’t just leave it all til the last minute, and then you’re showing up in my doorstep unannounced, and I have nothing ready for you when you get here.”

“I don’t leave things til the last minute.”

“Famous last words. I need help planning the menu for next month. I’m counting on you for pie.”

“Ma, you’re counting on me for all of it. Not just pie,” Steve scolded. “You won’t have to worry about it.”

“I don’t expect my son to come to my house for the holiday and have to cook everything when it’s supposed to be his weekend off. I don’t expect you to take time off of work, just so I can put you to work!” 

“It’s not work when the camera’s not rolling,” Steve reminded her. Especially when it didn’t involve wardrobe and makeup technicians fussing over him, having camera-ready food plated and ready to show as the finished product, having cameras practically aimed up his nostrils and always feeling on display. 

“Are you taking those vitamins I sent you? How about that chamomile tea with echinacea in it?”

“It’s not terrible,” he admitted. “I add a little local honey that I bought from the farmer’s market to it, and it tastes a little less like horse piss.”

Sarah snickered. “It’s not _that_ bad.”

“It’s just so… chamomile.”

“I know, I know. It’s not your favorite.” Steve heard his mom munching on something.

“What are you eating?”

“Just some shredded wheat. Gotta have fiber.”

“The plain kind?” Steve wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“Yup.”

“It’s like a great, big bowl of soggy wood shavings.”

“Again, it’s for fiber. Wait til you have seventy-year-old bowels, kiddo.”

“Looking forward to it…”

“Hey. How’s Brock? Is he coming with you this year?”

“Nope.”

“He had plans?”

“Eeee-yeaaaahh…”

“Uh-oh. What happened?”

“Brock apparently had plans with Tim. He’s not coming either, before you ask.”

“So, I take it you’re not planning to make him my son-in-law?”

“Never.” Steve felt himself flush with aggravation when his mother sighed in relief.

“Good. I’m sorry, sweetheart, but that’s a relief. Tim was shallow. And he was full of himself. You could do better. I didn’t want to say anything, because you seemed happy with him, but-”

“No. It’s okay, Ma. That’s fine.”

“I’m sorry, Stevie. He just seemed so selfish, and I felt like he never let you get a word in edgewise when you were with him, and-”

“It’s okay, Ma.” Hearing her list his faults didn’t make Steve feel any better. All it did was make Steve wonder how long his mother had been holding back.

“I know you never mentioned whether you ever wanted kids, but Tim didn’t even like them, remember? That’s a big red flag!”

“MA!”

“Sorry. Sorry. I just think you’re better off, in the long run. You’re just such a big sweetie, Steve. I love my sweet patootie.”

Steve thought back to the time that Sarah had called him that in front of Sam when they started dating. Sam had never, _ever_ let him live it down.

“I love you, too, Ma.”

“Start looking at flights. I’ll set up the guest room for you and whoever you bring with you.”

“It’ll probably just be me, at this point.”

“Well, we’ll leave your options open. No Tim, no Brock, no sour grapes. We’ll watch ‘A Christmas Story’ and eat all the things and go out and look at everyone’s lights. It’ll be fun. All right, Sweet Patootie. Talk to you soon.”

*

Bucky felt his phone buzz in his pocket while he waited in the agency lobby. He felt overdressed in the long sleeved polo shirt, loafers and dress slacks, but Nat said “We’re going for respectable” as she rummaged through his closet and wrangled him into shape for his interview.

_I found another Indeed posting you should look at. It says it’s full-time, even though it’s thirty-two hours a week. Morning shift. It’s assembly work, but you could probably manage it._

Bucky sighed. _They probably don’t insure workers who do fewer than thirty-six to forty hours. It’s a trap. And it’s grunt work._

Bucky went over his paperwork packet one last time as he waited for them to call him for the interview. He ran through his answers that he’d rehearsed to at least ten behaviorally based interview questions that he found online, hoping he sounded natural and professional instead of stumbling, awkward and desperate. Interviews sucked. Bucky and his anxiety could do very well without being stuck under a microscope for an hour, thank you very much. Yet, here he was. Feeling all starched and tucked in and uncomfortable, like a goofball, stuck sitting on an uncomfortable, nubby couch in a crowded lobby.

“James Barnes?” A young woman with brown hair in a smart gray suit called his name in a lilting voice. She was holding a clipboard and scanning the lobby, and Bucky immediately caught her eye when he stood up. As a reflex, he straightened his clothing and offered her a hesitant smile. Hers was automatic and bright, which still didn’t help his anxiety. But, off they went back to her cramped office. It was just a degree too warm, decorated with real and fake plants, business certificates in silver frames, and leather furniture that gleamed. Bucky waited for her to tell him to sit down before he perched on the edge of the seat.

“Make yourself at home. So, Jame-”

“Bucky,” he offered.

“Oh. Okay. Bucky. Cute. Anyway, thank you for coming in today. I had the chance to look over your resume and application. Thanks for taking the drug test.”

“Hey, why not? Just how I like to spend a Monday morning.”

Her smile was still bright, but Bucky refrained from adding, _It was negative, right? Are we good?_ This was a temp agency, but he still wanted to make a decent impression.

“You tested relatively high on the accounting, ten-key and typing tests. That will help you for the clerical positions.”

“You don’t have to limit the search to clerical, you know,” Bucky suggested.

“Oh, we want to place you in the position where you’ll fit the best! Trust me, this is a bad time of year for construction and food processing jobs, because a lot of them are outside. Clerical might be your best best, but we have a few jobs that fall under ‘Miscellaneous’ that just might…” Her voice trailed off as she turned to her computer screen and refreshed it. “Oh, look at that. A new position popped up. Oh, my. This looks… promising.”

“What kind of job is it?”

“Well, it’s a coincidence that we were just talking about the ‘Miscellaneous’ category, because that’s what they classified this under. And, it’s _good._ Wow. Oh, _wow_. They need a personal assistant.”

Bucky kept his smile in place, but inwardly, he blanched. “And it’s just temporary?”

“Temp to hire. You have to pass the thirty-day trial period. After that, it’s full benefits. It pays well. It’s a little clerical, you’d be booking travel and car rentals, and doing some driving yourself. You need a vehicle -”

“I have one,” Bucky interjected, even though he didn’t want to elaborate on it.

“Good! That’s what we like to hear!”

“What kind of business is it?”

“It looks like… oh. A television show.”

“That doesn’t sound intimidating at all,” Bucky quipped.

“Oh, I think you’ll be fine! You strike me as having a lot of charisma.”

 _Charisma_. Sure, Bucky thought. Why not?

Bucky’s ponytail pulled snugly at his nape, giving him the beginnings of a tension headache. He almost regretted not taking Natasha’s suggestion to have his hair cut, but he developed an attachment to it the longer it grew. Once he left the military, it was a luxury not to worry about how regimented he had to be about maintaining his appearance. Bucky was ready to start fresh and try something different, though. 

Being a personal assistant, thought… 

“Is this going to be a really ‘fussy’ job?” Bucky made air quotes with his fingers.

“Fussy? Well, it depends on your definition. People who use personal assistants are usually trying to free up time for other things that are more important. This could be a sweet gig, though. Unless you really think you wouldn’t be interested in it?” 

Bucky doubled back. “No. It sounds great. It does. I just - you know what? Just book me. Please. I’m ready to work.”

“And just remember, it’s temp to hire. I still have to take you through the boring interview questions, Bucky, but that won’t take long. And just think: You could have a new, _permanent_ job by the New Year!”

*

Bucky’s feet didn’t last inside the pinching, hard loafers once he keyed his way into his apartment. He toed them off at the front door and tugged open his necktie one-handed, tossing his pile of junk mail onto the side table. “Eeeaarrrgggh,” he groaned. His entry summoned his cat from the back of his apartment. Alpine trilled up at him and rose onto her hindfeet, planting her forepaws against his knee. She swiped her face against his pants, applying a generous coat of white hair to the dark polyester blend. “Hey, girl, did you miss me?” She vaulted up into his arms when he bent down to collect her, purring and headbutting his chin as he scratched behind her ears.

Bucky eyed the paperwork they gave him at the temp agency. A yellow copy of the form stating he accepted the contract for temporary hire, the name of the manager at the television station he would be reporting to - television! - and a copy of his W4 form. Bucky went to the cupboard and pulled out the crumpled bag of dry cat food and poured the last of it into Alpine’s bowl. She made very strong opinions known about the shallow layer of kibble in the dish.

“I know. It’s time to go back to the store. Daddy still loves you, girl.”

His refrigerator was looking just as bare. Bucky hated going to the grocery store and making his way down crowded aisles, with other customer’s carts riding his ass when he stood in line. It felt tedious. Crowds just didn’t agree with him anyway, with his anxiety. They made him claustrophobic, even on a good day. Even when his shell shock _didn’t_ kick in. Bucky was grateful to be home from the cramped lobby, away from the store crowds, or anywhere that he didn’t have to deal with people. And, it wasn’t that he didn’t _like_ people. He was just very, very picky about the ones that were worth the trouble of combing his hair, brushing his teeth, and putting on pants.

So, in the meantime, it was time for some quality Bucky time. The itchy work clothes got chucked into the hamper. Into the bathtub Bucky went, with plenty of lavender-scented Epsom salts, and out he came a half an hour later, hair shampooed, fingers pruney, and clad in his Rick and Morty pajama bottoms. Bucky shopped for cat food and cat litter on Amazon and heated up some leftovers. Almost on cue, Natasha texted him.

_So, how did it go?_

Bucky called her back, deciding it was easier to talk than trying to text and eat one-handed. “Hey.”

“Hey, James. So, how was it? Did you get a job?”

“The universe must think I did it a favor. I got it. It’s a sweet gig, too. I’m going to be a personal assistant.”

“Oh, wow. Are you going to be able to handle that? What if you end up with somebody really fussy?” Nat voiced exactly his own concern out loud, which made Bucky huff a laugh.

“”Right? Hey, I figure they can’t be any worse than anybody I had to report to on base. It sounds like I’ll be kind of a gopher. Picking up dry cleaning, putting gas in the company car, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds boring.” But, then she remembered that she was supposed to be encouraging him. “I mean, it sounds well! Great! Have fun!”

“I’m so glad I have you in my corner, Tasha.”

“Well, I am, you know. Seriously, though, Bucky, this is great. You have a new job just in time for the holidays.”

“I’m just glad I have one in time to make rent. Because that’s kinda the whole point.”

“Sure. Still, congrats. Hey, you’re buying this weekend.”

“Hahahahaha. No.”

“Kidding. I’m _kidding_. I do want to see you this weekend, though. Tell me how it goes on your first day.”

“That’s fine. Alpine misses you.”

“Well, I miss my cat niece, too. I need my fur baby fix. I hate living in a complex that doesn’t allow pets.”

“That was the only draw of moving into this one.” Bucky had a love-hate relationship with his place. Two bedrooms at a remarkably cheap price, but it was a downstairs unit, and his upstairs neighbor had a preference for doing Zumba at six AM and had three kids. It was also in the middle of the city, so Bucky heard every garbage truck, street sweeper, and ambulance and police siren that went by. But, he had onsite laundry facilities, and it allowed pets, so Alpine came with him when he moved out of his parents’ house. The street Bucky lived on boasted a strip mall with check cashing, a tanning salon, a bodega with bars on the front windows, a dilapidated movie theater that went out of business eight years ago, and a hole-in-the-wall diner that made the best pancakes he’d ever eaten. (But, hey. His apartment was cheap, and he had his cat.)

“I’m just glad you found it. Hey, my offer still stands for Christmas, by the way. Clint and I would love to have you over.”

“I wasn’t really planning on doing anything, Natasha.”

Which really meant that Bucky didn’t want to commit to putting on a face full of holiday cheer, and that he was too broke to buy Nat and Clint a present if he went over to eat. 

“Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to get us anything, and I want you to try my new recipe for pie. It looked really good on Pinterest. I just don’t want you to be all alone for the holiday.”

“I might not. Becca invited me over, too. I’m just not feeling Christmas this year.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Natasha’s voice was soft and thoughtful, holding a note of sympathy that Bucky didn’t want. “The offer still stands, James. Not just because of the holiday, but because we miss you, okay?”

“Awwww. I miss you, too. I do. Anyway, I won’t commit to anything yet. Don’t expect me to wear a holiday sweater or watch cheesy movies with you two.”

“Are you kidding? We’re watching ‘Die Hard.’ None of that schmaltzy stuff.”

Bucky huffed a laugh. “Nice.”

“We’re saving you a place.”

“It’d be better to get together after Christmas, honestly,” Bucky suggested, hoping to nudge her off the subject. “Wait til I’ve paid a few bills, and we can do something here in town.”

Natasha made an exasperated noise. “Don’t worry about money, James, okay?”

“Tell the sky to stop being blue.”

“I know, I know… okay. Talk to you soon. I’m headed to Michaels to buy out the ribbon section and get lots of other crap I don’t need.”

“Have fun.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

“Bye, now.”

It was hard saying “maybe” to Nat and Clint. They meant well, and Bucky _did_ have fun with them, for the most part. This had been such a crappy year, though. Some days, Bucky functioned. And then, some other days in between, Bucky just couldn’t _person_. Holidays tended to bring that out of him, and it sucked.

At any rate, now Bucky had a job. His bills would be paid, he had a reason to get up every day and put on pants, he could afford cat food, and maybe, just maybe, everything else would fall into place.

Maybe.


	2. Some Things Never Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You’re going to be my personal assistant. Which means actually assisting me.”
> 
> “Again, it’s not rocket science.” Ralph seemed to agree with Bucky, and Bucky glanced down at him and gave him another friendly scratch. “Huh, big guy? I’m here to help your daddy, if we can get around a few picky, fiddly things. Who’s a good boy?”
> 
> “Don’t flirt with my dog. Pay attention. You’re not… that’s not paying attention.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could have done this as a tidy oneshot. Sorry not sorry.

Steve made it into the parking garage about five minutes late and spent the entire time that he maneuvered into his personal space grumbling and cursing to himself. So far, he’d managed to fuck up the following:

Burned his eggs for breakfast.  
Ran out of coffee and had to stop at Dunkin’  
Spilled his Dunkin’ on his best khaki pants when he stopped too sharply at the intersection  
Forgot his bag of gym clothes in the kitchen after packing them the night before  
Forgot to pay his cell phone bill the day before, earning himself a late fee.

And it was only nine AM.

So far, the only saving grace was his morning walk with Ralph, who had been Steve’s therapist’s prescription for stress relief. Ralph was a rescue pet and he pretty much had Steve’s number from the jump. Tim, to his credit, loved Ralph, too, but he acted clueless about animal care, and he had a bad habit of sneaking Ralph table scraps when Steve wasn’t around. Steve took Ralph on his walks like clockwork, even in the middle of the night, because Steve had encountered the dog’s middle of the night “accidents” with his bare feet or in his favorite socks. Brock would walk the dog, but he didn’t take as much time to play with him at the park as Steve did. The day just wasn’t the same without some quality Frisbee time, and to Steve, that was a priority.

Steve hurried into the elevator after he badged his way in through the front door. Kitty, the receptionist at the desk, called after him. “Hi, Steve! You missed the meeting!”

“Sorry!” he called back. “I got stuck in traffic, and… you don’t even wanna know.”

He caught her smile and the shake of her head as she waved him on, right before the doors closed. Steve rode up to the fifth floor of the high-rise and he hoped that his suite already had some better coffee brewed and ready, along with a clean pair of slacks in Wardrobe. This morning needed to suck a little less…

Steve noticed the maintenance workers unboxing Christmas decorations and lights and sighed; there were still autumn wreaths hanging on the walls, and Steve always felt frustrated whenever businesses rushed the season. Then again, his own ma was already getting him to commit to a plan for Christmas, and no, Steve _was not going to leave everything til the last minute_ , thank you very much, Ma. Sheesh.

Still. At least now, Steve didn’t have to worry about pacifying Tim and bringing him along as his “plus one” or having to bicker about it. Their first Christmas together had been fun; they’d gone skiing in Vermont and spent most of the time in the lodge, soaking in the spas and drinking spiked egg nog and cocoa. Once they’d gotten a few more holidays under their belts, though, the gloss started to wear off. Steve and Sam had a better track record together, and they were certainly in love, but there came a time when Sam finally told him, “We need to evaluate where we’re going, Steven.” They both had goals. Steve’s show was really taking off, and Sam wanted to work on his doctorate, and suddenly… they just weren’t on the same page. And it was hard. 

So, they ended up friends, again. Still close. Still each other’s favorite person to call. Ralph made himself at home on Sam’s lap as soon as he came into the house, and Steve pretended he wasn’t jealous. And Sam was doing just fine, spending time with his nieces and nephews, building up his psychiatric practice, going on “casual” dates with T’Challa, who he insisted was just a friend, for now. Sure.

Once in a while, Sam would try to set him up with someone new, but Steve wasn’t interested. Not yet.

Not when it was so hard to let his guard down. Steve needed specific things out of a relationship, and he needed to be able to trust that person with… well, the big stuff. The important stuff. Steve needed to feel like he just Wasn’t Too Much Work for someone else. 

Steve bypassed his office and went straight to Wardrobe. Sharon and Monica were organizing the racks of clothes that came back from the cleaners in their pristine plastic bags. Sharon gave him a bright smile. “Hey, Steve,” Monica told him. “Ooh, you went to Dunkin’!”

“Yeah, and I got it all over me.” He indicated the stains on his white cardigan and khakis.

“Awwww. Shoot. That stinks. Here, we’ll get you into something else. Rough morning?”

“I’ve had better.”

“How was the flight?”

“Uneventful.”

“That’s the best kind.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“The last time I flew back into DC, there must have been about three screaming babies on that flight,” Monica told them. “At least it wasn’t a red-eye.”

“I don’t mind kids on planes,” Sharon told her. “Poor little things. Their ears aren’t made for flying.”

“Girl, neither are mine,” Monica told her, and she rolled her eyes for emphasis. “Just give me two of those tiny bottles of Jack Daniels and knock me out! And let me fly first class next time, and keep those little crumb snatchers in coach!”

“Kenneling fees are so high and I’m so afraid they won’t take good care of Ralph. I’d rather just pay for a housesitter, instead.”

“Dogs aren’t kids, Steve,” Sharon told him simply.

“Says you.”

“He’s his fur baby,” Monica added, and she fist-bumped Steve just because.

Sharon fished through the racks and found Steve another pair of gray slacks and a cream-colored wool sweater. “Not quite what you have on, but it’ll do for now before we tape. Unless, you just want that outfit on now?”

“Depends on what it is?”

“You’re going to be rocking the holiday sweaters pretty much every day starting December first. Did you get the memo?”

“Say it ain’t so?”

“Sorry, buddy. I don’t make the rules.”

Steve groaned loudly and took the proffered clothes with him to the changing room. Pietro passed him and told him, “Hey. I made French roast. And Wanda bought donuts.”

“Bless you.” Steve knew they came from the hole-in-the-wall bakery on Ninth Street, Crumb Snatchers, and the owner was due for a guest spot on the show in two weeks to share her recipe for egg nog donuts and a gluten-free apple spice cake. Wanda was a stickler for frequenting small, local businesses, especially around the holidays. Steve met Wanda’s brother Pietro when he was in elementary school and the two of them stayed in the pediatric wing of the hospital the same week; Steve had his open heart surgery, and Pietro had a tumor removed from his eye. They became fast friends, and when Steve finished culinary school and opened his own catering business, he called Pietro to come on board. His sister Wanda followed him onto the staff of the show a year after Steve signed the contract. 

Some of Steve’s coworkers went to school with him growing up, and they remembered him before he was famous. When he was an art nerd with an inhaler in his pocket and wire-rimmed prescription glasses. Most of the production team and staff, though, only met Steve after he’d made it, and after he’d remade himself. Steve Rogers had an “aw, shucks” charm despite appearing bigger than life. He caught every eye whenever he walked into the room, and those eyes followed him back out of it. Every time.

Some things hadn’t changed, like his lack of depth perception and his uncanny knack for dropping his toast butter-side down on the floor. When Steve was anxious, Steve became _clumsy_. Like this morning, when he’d managed to fumble open the pop-tab on the lid of his coffee and dump half of it down his front. Steve only grew more fumbly when he had too many balls in the air, and he had no one else to help him juggle now that he’d fired his assistant, so. There was that.

Steve took the clothing into the dressing room and hung it on the back of the door. He started compulsively neatening the space, grumbling under his breath. “All crazy up in here… when’s the last time Housekeeping came in here, it’s so dusty-”

“Are you in there muttering to yourself again?” Sharon called out.

“I’m not muttering. I’m thinking out loud.”

“That’s very fussy thinking,” Sharon accused.

“Hey, Steve, you might want to hurry up. I just got a call from the front lobby. Tony is coming up the elevator. He wants to talk to you.”

“I’m not caffeinated enough to handle that, yet.” Darned flip-tabbed coffee lid…

“Just hurry up and get changed.”

Steve shucked his sweater, tsking at the stain. The damp streaks on his slacks were cooling against his skin, making it feel clammy. The dressing room was thankfully well heated. Pulling the sweater over his head mussed his hair, which was still faintly damp and comb-tracked from his shower. Steve grumbled more about the wasted grooming and wasted coffee. He stepped out of the slacks and laid them neatly over the chair, hoping that Sharon had a stain stick that he could use so they didn’t get ruined.

Steve was still puttering around in the dressing room when he heard Sharon and Monica’s conversation stop abruptly, cut short by Tony’s familiar baritone through the door.

“Rogers usually never runs late. Is the sky red outside? Are the four horsemen of the apocalypse flying overhead? Where is he?”

“He just stepped into the changing room-“

“ROGERS!” Tony banged on the dressing room door, and Steve jumped out of his skin.

“Shit! Tony, I’m not-“

“Hey, can I come in? I’m coming in!” Tony offered, not waiting for permission. He plowed the door open wide, and Steve let out a little shriek of alarm. Before he could grab any of the fresh clothes and pull them on, Steve found himself protectively wrapping his (bare) arms around his torso, looking like someone who stumbled out of the shower and found out there were no towels left.

Tony looked amused and wholly unapologetic. “Someone came back from a trip to Mexico still fish-belly pale. You didn’t hit the beach even once while you were gone, did you, chief? Hey, you’ve got an inny! I called it. I’m telling Pepper I called it. So, Steve, this is your new personal assistant, that temp agency really came through. Bobby here-”

“Bucky.”

“Bucky. Sure. Okay. You _did_ come from a temp agency, I guess… anywho. Your new assistant here is the only guy in the building besides yours truly who looks as handsome on his security badge as he does in person. It’s a gift. I hate him already.”

Steve’s brows drew together in alarm, both from the shock of being barged in on when he was indisposed, and from the sound of the familiar voice behind Tony, with its faint Brooklyn accent and unusually rounded vowels. “My new assistant?” Steve finally snapped out of his shock and his hands drifted down to his hips as he waited for the man behind Tony to drift forward from the doorway.

Steve’s mouth went dry and the room seemed to spin for a minute.

“ _Bucky._ ”

Large, piercing, deep-set blue-gray eyes caught Steve’s, at once familiar and impossible. Initially, Bucky’s smile was polite, perhaps automatic, but it froze in place for several seconds, before it thinned. He was older, of course. More grown-up looking, with the soft crinkles around his eyes and a few strands of gray in his hair. It was still shining and thick, sable brown, and it hung down in soft waves that reached his jaw. He had more meat on his bones, no longer the lanky teenager Steve grew up with (and had to school himself sternly to stop staring at, back then, because _high school_ ). James Buchanan Barnes was more stunning than ever, but Steve recognized that look on his face. He’d given him that same look at their graduation, when he walked out of Steve’s life. And before that, the night at Steve's house, when he’d crushed Steve’s fragile hopes.

“You’re _that_ Steve Rogers?”

“Uh. Excuse me? You didn’t know that when you walked into the building? You didn’t see his face on the posters out front?” Tony accused. “What rock did you crawl out from under?”

“I just… I didn’t know. It’s been… forever.”

“Hi,” Steve, told him, holding out his hand, because scrambling for his clothes was pointless at this point. “I’m Steve. The guy from the posters and the podcast. Voted Most Artistic in the senior yearbook?”

Bucky made a sound that might have been a laugh. The handshake was surprisingly firm. Warm. Charged. Steve felt his body light up with electricity with the contact, and his pulse jumped. Bucky smelled herbal; maybe it was his cologne. His jaw was stubbled with about three days’ worth of beard, but Steve noticed he still had that wicked little cleft in his chin.

“Are we introducing ourselves with superlatives now? I was Most Likely to Succeed and Class Clown,” Tony shared, just because he could. “You getting a draft there, Steve?”

“What?”

“You’re looking a little nipply there, pal.”

Steve and Bucky were staring at each other, taking each other in, and the rude awakening made their hands spring apart. Bucky leaned back against the edge of the doorway, folding his arms, while Steve searched frantically for clothes. Any clothes. He fumbled his way into the fresh slacks first, not caring that he looked ridiculous hopping into them.

“Okay. So. Bucky. That name is doing it for me for some reason. You’re going to make sure Steve leaves his house in actual clothes every day and see to his every whim, no matter how petty, because that’s what a PA does. Steve will run you through what he expects. You’ve already got the paperwork packet. Get that back to Pepper by tomorrow morning. Don’t lollygag. That woman signs your checks. She’s a ray of sunshine, but her claws come out when you turn in your time cards late.”

“Welcome aboard,” Steve told him dryly. His eyes flitted over Bucky’s clothes. Snug jeans. A slightly threadbare gray henley. His hair - God, it was so long now - was a wavy tumble. “Are you always this casual for work in an office?”

“Your show’s called the Bitchen Kitchen. How seriously does anyone need to take me with that plastered on the walls in the lobby?” Bucky pointed out.

Steve’s jaw clicked, and a deep sigh escaped him.

The morning kept looking brighter and _brighter_.

*

“You’re never gonna believe who I’m working for.”

“Who?” Becca had to raise her voice a little over the background clamor in her kitchen.

“Steve from high school.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah. Rogers.”

“I don’t know if I - wait. Steve? That little blond guy? The one with the glasses and the denim jacket with all the weird buttons on it? Didn’t he used to come over back when you were in junior high?”

“Yeah. Same one.”

“Where is he now?”

“You’re never gonna believe it. You will think I’m one hundred percent bullshitting you when you hear what he’s doing now.”

“What? Tell me, already, Bucky!” He heard her pause for a moment and yell, “QUIET DOWN! I’m talking to your uncle, quit screaming like a bunch of heathens and turn that crap down!” She sighed in exasperation. “Kids are playing that Kingdom Hearts game and have the speakers turned up too high, I can’t hear myself think.”

“Do you watch Steve’s Bitchen Kitchen?”

“Oh, my God, who _doesn’t?_ I LOVE that show. I’ve subscribed to the blog for updates, I found some really great recipes on there for Mark’s gluten allergy, he has celiac’s disease. Did I tell you that the last time we talked? He does, you know.”

“Steve Rogers is _that_ Steve Rogers. From middle school and high school.”

Bucky winced and held the phone away from his ear when she shrieked like a pterodactyl.

“BUCKY! Oh, my God! _Oh, my GOD_. Are you serious? Are you _shitting me._ Steve from _Steve’s Bitchen Kitchen._ You _work_ for him now?”

“Not directly. Technically, I work for the temp agency. It’s temp-to-hire after a month.”

“Bucky, that’s wonderful! This is so dope! The two of you can get caught up! How long has it been since you guys last talked?”

“Senior year,” Bucky admitted.

“You guys aren’t gonna know where to even begin! Oh, wow. You can tell him about your time in the military, and school. I’m so excited, he’s gonna love getting to know you again, Bucky!”

“Yeah. Well. Maybe not.”

He heard her hesitate. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“We didn’t leave off on the best foot.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Just. We didn’t.”

“Well, who knows? It’s been a long time. This is amazing, though. Is he that hot in person?”

“Becca. You’re _married_. Excuse you?”

“Hey, I can look. I can drool a little. Can you blame me? Have you seen those shoulders? And that _backside_?”

Bucky heard Mark, Becca’s husband, muttering in the background, “I’m not even gonna try to compete with that…”

Bucky snickered. “He’s not that hot in person, Mark,” Bucky lied. He knew that Becca put him on speaker.

“Liar,” Becca told him sharply. “I know he is. And because you have an in with him now, I expect to get to come to a taping of the show. Hook me up.”

“I can’t hook you up, don’t be ridiculous! I’m only a temp! I don’t have that kind of privilege with him. I have no cred with this man.”

“How do you _not?_ You two used to play Capcom games on our old Sega console! I liked him, he totally drew me a picture of Sailor Moon that I know I still have somewhere.” She paused. “The two of you were a couple of dorks.”

“No, I wasn’t! I was cool.”

“Bucky, I’ve walked in on you making shampoo Mohawks out of your hair in the shower and doing poses in the mirror. Trust me: You’re a dork.”

Bucky heard Mark chuckling nearby and told them both, “You guys suck.”

“You love me. And once you get hired on, you can get us in to see the show live. Let me know when you do, so I can get my hair done if the camera pans to us in the audience-”

“Goodbye, Becca.”

“Bucky, don’t you _dare-_ ”

Bucky hung up and chucked his cell onto the bed before flopping back onto the mattress. Alpine hopped up onto the bed and crawled onto his chest. She stretched and kneaded her paws against his chin, squinting up at him before she began to purr.

“I’m the only one who isn’t excited about this job, girl. It’s _Steve_ , fer cryin’ out loud. Out of all the people in the universe that I could end up running into. Why _him._ ”

She licked one paw and began to clean behind her ears, keeping the other paw crammed against his chin, and he scratched her chest, sighing. Well, at least his bills would be paid, for now. Maybe they’d be fine. Maybe they’d get along.

*

Bucky climbed out of his Mustang Cobra and stared at the house in disbelief. His GPS led him to the pristine neighborhood of cookie cutter tract houses, all the way into the cul-de-sac. The house wasn’t a McMansion, but it was close. It was the only two-story house on the block, telling Bucky that Steve probably had the second floor built on as an addition. The front lawn was manicured and green, and there was an elaborate rock garden at its center. Twin parrot magnolia trees flanked the front walkway, which boasted brick paver stones. As soon as Bucky slammed and locked his door, he heard a dog barking from inside. It was a loud, deep bark that sounded like it belonged to an absolute behemoth. Bucky knew he smelled like his cat, so he hoped it was a friendly encounter. 

He came up the front walkway and picked up Steve’s newspaper on the way, intrigued that he was the kind of guy who still read the paper in print instead of online. The barking inside the door continued, and Bucky was relieved that Steve kept his dog indoors during this brisk weather, instead of in the yard like a bonafide asshole. He heard Steve attempting to soothe the dog and saw his beefy - _beefy_ , when had that happened? - silhouette looming and growing bigger through the frosted glass panes as he approached, before Bucky even had the chance to knock. Bucky held his breath until he heard the lock release, right before the door swung open smoothly, silently, telling him that Steve lubricated the hinges, because of course he did.

_Holy shit._

Bucky had wanted to climb Steve like a tree in the office before he got over the initial shock of realizing who he was upon their re-introduction. The reality of him, tall, stacked, ripped and powerful, with so much of him bare and revealed to Bucky’s hungry eyes, was overwhelming and too much to process. Stark called him “fish belly pale,” but Bucky saw the little details like the dusting of freckles over the tops of his shoulders, and the dusting of sandy blond hair over his skin, particularly the enticing happy trail that crept below the waistband of his paisley-printed boxers. Steve’s washboard flat stomach - a twelve-pack, Steve, really? - stood at odds with the fact that he had his own very successful cooking show. Fair skin with rosy undertones, taut and firm, made Bucky’s hands itch to run over it. And Steve didn’t skip leg day-

“Hey. My eyes are up here.”

Bucky realized he was still lost in the trance of his previous encounter when he felt a cold, damp nose pushing itself into his palm and up into the cuff of his jacket sleeve. Steve’s voice was curt, underscored by his dog’s now friendly barks and whines, and Bucky realized he was failing on his end of communicating, offering Steve a sheepish grin. 

“They used to be lower. You used to be smaller.”

Steve’s brows drew together, but he gave Bucky a self-deprecating laugh. “You remember that, huh? Remind me never to let you talk to the press.”

“You sure? I might still have that picture of you at Gabe’s sleepover when you woke up just as he was sticking your hand in warm water. That was a kick in the pants.” But Steve ignored that claim and spoke instead to his dog. Bucky was disappointed that he didn’t rise to the bait.

“Ralph, leave him alone. Go lay down.”

Bucky was already kneeling down despite himself, letting the mixed lab get his scent and scratching him behind his ears before Steve gave that command. Bucky preferred cats, but every now and again, it was just nice to play with a dog. “He’s fine,” Bucky protested.

“He knows better. You can’t just let him do what he wants, or he will take advantage,” Steve told him, but his eyes were warm when they followed his dog’s jingling trot to the red, plaid flannel dog bed over in the living room. Ralph flopped down on it and automatically started chewing on a stuffed animal. “I hope you don’t mind dogs. You’re going to be seeing a lot of him, if you stay on.”

That made Bucky straighten up. _If you stay on._ Only a nuclear bomb blast would keep Bucky from clinging to this temp-to-hire assignment by his fingernails. He needed the job, and eventually, the benefits, if the two of them could manage to have a successful working relationship. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Sure.” Then Steve gestured broadly, “Come on in. And take off your shoes. My housekeeper was just here yesterday. She comes once a week. I do what I can in-between, but it helps to do a little damage control.”

Bucky dutifully toed off his sneakers and left them on the front mat. Then, he backed up as Steve bent down and picked up the shoes and turned them facing the other direction, with the toes facing the door. When he came that close, Bucky gained a faint whiff of his cologne. 

The house was impeccably clean, and the level of micromanagement in the kitchen alone made Bucky’s blood pressure rise a notch. Bucky wasn’t exactly a slob himself, after being in the military, and he hated clutter.. But, this. 

_Wow._

Bucky blinked in an attempt to convince himself that everything was just that carefully placed. 

Steve had used a level to make sure every framed print and photograph was hung perfectly straight. Bucky noticed a short stack of folded dishtowels on the edge of the counter, beside the stove. The folds were pristine and perfectly even; none of the edges spilled or overlapped. The flour and sugar canisters were arranged by size. There wasn’t a drop of grease on the stove or the range hood. The kitchen rugs were perfectly centered in front of each counter and large appliance. The baseboards were spotless. Every coffee mug hanging from hooks behind the stove were identical in size and shape. All of the spices in the lazy susan spinner on the kitchen island were still alphabetized, because clearly, Steve was _disciplined_. A tiny bookshelf was tucked into the corner and filled with how-to manuals, travel guides, and cookbooks. 

“A little damage control,” Bucky muttered. “You party animal, you. Can’t let this place get out of hand.”

“I can’t,” Steve informed him. His tone was low but brusque. “That’s a thing with me. I can’t. I like things in their place. I don’t… I can’t function when things are messy. It makes it too hard to think. That’s where you come in. I just need you to take some things off my plate. I can work with you on some of it, but this is still a job. And I need you to treat it like it’s important to you, or we’re not gonna connect, Buck.”

The use of the old nickname sparked memories. The corners of Bucky’s mouth quirked up for a moment. “I can’t even remember the last time you called me that.”

Steve reached up and rubbed his nape, a gesture he apparently hadn’t outgrown, after all. He used to do it right before he… oh.

There it was. The little forehead crinkle, followed by the soft blush that spread across the crowns of his cheeks. “You don’t like it? I’m sorry. Do you still prefer Bucky, or James, or…?”

“No, no. Go ahead. You can. It’s fine. I… it’s always been… fine. When you call me that. Just go with it.”

It felt so strange to see the adult Steve acting so much like the kid Bucky remembered from middle school, and for a minute, he forgot why he was there. He wished they could sit down with a cup of coffee and a box of doughnuts and fill in the gaps of the past twenty years. 

Steve was dressed in a plush, cable-knit white cardigan with the sleeves rolled up and charcoal gray slacks. He had wool socks on his feet that looked high quality and warm. His hair was stylishly cut, slightly spiky and combed with a lot of volume over his forehead, which was a far cry from the long bangs he used to sport in high school. An Apple watch hugged his left wrist; somehow, that just wasn’t a surprise. Steve looked like a guy who needed to check his texts, emails, blood pressure, the weather, and number of steps at a glance.

“Somebody needs some socks for Christmas,” Steve murmured, suddenly. 

“Huh?”

“Your socks. They have built-in air conditioning.”

Bucky’s big toe was sticking out of the hole worn in the left sock. They were black, once, now faded to dark charcoal gray, and Bucky just never got around to throwing them out. He wasn’t sure when he’d get to the store to replace them, and it wasn’t like he didn’t enjoy new socks. It was just one of those items on that list of stuff that he never got around to buying himself. Like, new Tupperware before all the containers and lids no longer matched. More often than not, Bucky waited until his mom or Becca bought him new socks for Christmas or his birthday. Bucky leaned back against the kitchen counter and crossed his right foot over his left to cover the offending, bare digit. “They’re ‘lived in.’”

“Right.”

_Socks._ Steve silently made a note to himself. This was something he could help with. It was a habit by now. He kept Brock’s favorite flavor of coffee creamer in his fridge and gave him gift cards once a season, just as a perk. Bucky wasn’t even ten minutes into being Steve’s assistant, and Steve was already thinking of little things that Bucky might like, or need. Steve loved lists. They were vital to how his mind worked.

“So. I have a time card,” Bucky told him as he took the folded paper out of his pocket. “You’re gonna have to check it off for me when I show up and when I leave. At least, that’s what Pepper told me.”

“That’s fine.” Steve checked his watch. “You got here four minutes ago.”

“You can round up the time.”

“No. I can’t.”

Bucky huffed.

Steve scratched out the time on the card in small, neat print and handed it back to Bucky. He refolded it and returned it to his pocket and asked, “Okay. What next? What do you need?”

“I need to give you the grand tour. You might want to take notes.”

“I’m not a note-taker kind of guy.”

Steve smiled, opened a drawer, and handed Bucky a small notebook and a pen that he uncapped. “You are now.”

“Oh, for real? We’re really doing this? Okay. Okay.”

“Okay. Follow me.” 

Steve led him through the living room, and Ralph automatically got up from his bed and went back to sniffing at Bucky’s ankles and the backs of his knees. Bucky didn’t try to restrain his smile. “That’s Ralph’s bed. I really don’t like him on the couch unless I’m on the couch. I don’t mind him on my lap, but sometimes, he likes to try to chew the cushions. Not a good look or a good habit. Ralph has his own toy basket. He’s a Frisbee addict. If you walk him, you never leave the house without a Frisbee. It’s one of the unwritten rules, but it’s golden. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a dog?”

“I can live with that rule.”

“Good. We don’t eat in the living room. Big important rule. _You_ try to get a barbecue sauce stain out of cream Berber carpet and then tell me I’m being a tight ass about keeping food in the kitchen.”

“Becca gave up on light carpeting when she had kids. Hey, you remember my sister?”

“Vaguely. Didn’t she have a lot of Hello Kitty stuff and watch a lot of anime?”

“Yup.”

Steve nodded, and for a moment, his expression was fond. “Tell her hi. But, don’t change the subject. No food in the living room.”

“Check.”

“Write that down.”

_Seriously?_

“You’re going to get a house key, a mail key, and a key to the office. You might occasionally have to go there after hours. I’m going to give you the contact information for my dry cleaner, my barber, and my tailor.”

“You have a _tailor_?”

“Well, yeah. He does alterations for me. I like my jackets to fit a certain way. Sometimes, clothes don’t quite work right off the rack.”

“You don’t just have a favorite designer, or favorite store? Or brand?”

“No, I do. But I still have a tailor. That’s why I took Home Ec in high school, Buck. I wanted to learn how to hem my own pants.”

Which, in hindsight, explained so much.

“I have the Rolodex in the kitchen.”

“You still keep a Rolodex?”

“Yup.”

Bucky bit back a retort and kept following him down the hall to the back of the house. “Laundry room. Spare bathroom. Weight room. Sometimes, I know I won’t get to the gym when I come home from a trip. Or I just don’t feel like dealing with traffic to go downtown.”

NordicTrack machines gleamed in the sunlight streaming in through the window. Every dumbbell was stacked in its proper place on the rack. The spare bathroom had a full complement of toiletries and the towels were precisely folded and hung.

“Let me know if you want to park your car in the garage, but just leave me enough room for my Navigator,” Steve told him. No clutter in the garage. It was clean enough to live in.

“Let’s check out upstairs,” Steve encouraged, and Bucky just drank it in, feeling very much like an intruder. They padded up the stairs, and Ralph followed them, collar tags jingling all the way. “Master bedroom. Master bath. Guest bedroom. Linen pantry. Attic.” He pointed to the short flight of stairs in the rear hallway. “I store a few things there that my dad left me, and some of the discontinued merchandise from the show. Once in a while, Brock would help me liquidate it on the Web site, but I was thinking of giving it to charity.”

“I can think of a few thrift stores. Becca works in Social Services for the county. She could give you a few names, if you want.”

Steve nodded enthusiastically. “Please do. Give me her number before you check out today.”

“She’s tickled that I’m even working for you. She’s a fan, apparently.”

“Hey. By the way, about that.”

“About… what?”

“Family and friends. I know it might be tempting, while you’re working, to want to let your friends hang out here, or your family, but I’m really picky about who I let in my home. And I don’t like a lot of random people here when I’m not on camera.”

Bucky frowned. “Are you kidding me?”

“No. I wouldn’t kid you.”

“I mean… Stevie. Come on. You think I’m just going to invite anyone up in here to pet the dog and eat all kinds of shit in your living room? Or track up your floors with their combat boots?”

“That’s kind of the point of the discussion.”

“This hasn’t really been a ‘discussion.’ It’s the ‘grand tour.’” Bucky made finger quotes around the word and tucked the pen behind his ear, which Steve would have found cute if Bucky’s words and stance didn’t immediately make him feel defensive.

“It was a problem with my last assistant.”

“I’m not your last assistant.”

“Well, I sure as hell hope not. We had some problems with communication.”

“I’m a clear communicator. I get it. You don’t want anyone fucking up your house. It’s not rocket science.”

Steve folded his arms across his chest and appraised Bucky. Bucky noticed the way those opal blue eyes - they seemed to shift with his moods, a pearly gray one moment, and a little green the next - cooled and narrowed. “Can I finish giving you the tour? I have a lot of ground I want to cover today, and I want to make sure you know what’s expected of you if I take you on.”

“You want to know what to expect if you take me on? Oh, buddy. Stevie. You have no idea.”

Bucky’s voice was a smooth drawl that licked over Steve’s nerve endings. His smirk was lopsided and made Steve’s gut quiver, but there was something challenging in his stance. He was testing Steve. (Even though if Steve didn’t know better, he’d almost think Bucky was _flirting_ with him. No. Of course not.)

“Then maybe that won’t work.”

“It’ll work if you work with me.”

“You’re here to work for _me_.”

“Yeah?”

“Pretty much. You’re going to be my personal assistant. Which means actually assisting me.”

“Again, it’s not rocket science.” Ralph seemed to agree with Bucky, and Bucky glanced down at him and gave him another friendly scratch. “Huh, big guy? I’m here to help your daddy, if we can get around a few picky, fiddly things. Who’s a good boy?”

“Don’t flirt with my dog. Pay attention. You’re not… that’s not paying attention.” Because Bucky was kneeling down again and giving Ralph a full-on belly rub once Ralph realized he had a willing sucker to indulge him, rolling onto his bag gleefully and letting his tongue loll out of the side of his mouth. “I’m not being picky and fiddly. I just have certain ways I want certain things done.”

“And they’ll get done. I get it. Just assume that I’ll get it. I’m good at doing what I’m told, Stevie, remember? I spent a long time in the military. It goes with the territory.”

“How long were you in?”

“Ten years. Long enough to pay for school. We’ll talk about that one of these days when we have more time.” Which was Bucky’s way of saying that he didn’t feel like talking about it, and Steve decided to let it go. 

“Just promise me you’ll tell me about anyone who you let in here,” Steve told him. “I’m not asking much. Use a little discretion?”

“That’s fine. That’s fine, Steve. I promise. No wild parties. No mayhem. But, I’m serious. Becca would love to meet you again, if that’s okay. Maybe we can meet for coffee off the clock.”

“Eventually.” That sounded noncommittal, but Bucky would take it.

“Okay. No uninvited guests.”

“Right.”

“No biggie.”

“Let me know when you use the last of something when you’re here, so I can make a list. I live by lists. There’s a whiteboard on the fridge, you probably saw it when you came in.”

“That, I did.”

Bucky straightened up from petting the dog and took the pen back out from behind his ear, letting the locks of hair fall forward again around his face. Steve fought the urge to reach up and push them back. His hair looked soft and touchable. What would it be like to comb his fingers through it, if they-

Steve cleared his throat. “Okay. So. I have a company credit card that’s just for company stuff. Picking up dry cleaning. Groceries. Dog supplies. Cleaning supplies. Going to the bakery.”

“You buy stuff from bakeries?”

“Once in a while. Just to bring in stuff for my team. I do that about once a week. It’s just a morale booster.”

“Oh. That’s nice.”

“Well, yeah. I’ve worked for companies that didn’t do crap for their employees. It’s draining. I don’t wanna be ‘that guy.’” Even though he didn’t mind being “the guy with the stick so far up his ass that even a tractor couldn’t pull it out.” Bucky would spare him that opinion.

Bucky halfheartedly started to jot things down. Maybe he did it to appease Steve, more than any likelihood that he would find the information useful in the future.

They poked around in Steve’s walk-in closet (“Casuals go on this side. Shirts are sorted by sleeve length and color. Work slacks. Jeans. Casual slacks. Blazers. These are two-button, these are double-breasted, if you hang up the dry cleaning. I mean, I can hang it, but if you get home before I do, I REALLY wouldn’t mind…”) and rounded up their tour back in the kitchen.

“I need to run an errand. I’m going to pick up some stuff at the printer’s, and you should come with me so you know where it is the next time.”

“Lead the way. Is Ralph coming?”

“No. That’s not part of the routine.”

Ah. Sure.

Steve drove them in Steve’s Navigator, and Bucky luxuriated in the warmth of the heated seat. The day was brisk, and the chill made Bucky’s bad shoulder sore, so the heat helped. 

“Why are you grimacing?”

“Am I?”

“Yeah. You’ve done that a few times.”

“Sore joint. Bum shoulder. Nothing new.”

“Well, don’t overdo it.” Steve’s eyes glanced at Bucky once in a while as they entered the freeway. “If you don’t mind my mentioning it, you’re still in really good shape.”

“Why would I mind that?”

There was that little blush again. “I just… never mind.”

Bucky stared out the passenger window, pleased. He lost his battle with the little smirk that kept playing at the corners of his mouth until they made their way onto the exit ramp.

“There it is. When you come, just park around the back. It’s easier than trying to find parking out on the street.”

“I just use the parking garage.”

“I won’t park this car in the parking structure. It’s not safe. Somebody dinged the bumper of my old car once and didn’t even leave behind a note. And someone could assault you after hours in one of those things.” Steve shuddered. Bucky had been about to ride him a little about his caution, but something in his bearing told him to leave it alone.

“Bad experience?”

“It’s not always good when people recognize you,” Steve explained. That little furrow between his brows was back.

“Okay,” Bucky agreed. “That’s fine, Stevie.”

There was that old nickname. It evoked an image that laid buried in Steve’s subconscious. Lying on couch cushions on the floor, on their stomachs, and clutching game controllers that were sticky with soda and Cheeto dust. Watching the bluish glow from the TV screen flicker and dance on each other’s hair and skin in the dark. Shoulders bumped together companionably while Steve’s mother attempted to sleep down the corridor because she had to work early the next day. Sleepovers at the Rogers’ house were rare and precious, until freshman year. They evaporated once Bucky made it onto junior varsity and got his driver’s license. 

They parked in the “Parking Reserved for Customers Only” spaces in the back of the print shop, Howlin’ Jim’s Graphics and Design, and Bucky followed Steve inside. The interior was neater and more organized than the store front suggested, and it smelled like heavy paper stock and ink. The front door dinged to announce their entry, and a short, stocky guy built like a Mac truck came out from behind the counter and greeted Steve with a grin. Steve looked just as happy to see him, and their handshake turned into a back-clapping hug.

“Hey, there, Twinkle-Toes.”

“How’s it going?”

“It’s going. Jesus, Rogers, did you hit the beach at all when you went to Mexico?”

“You sound like Tony.”

“Bite yer tongue. Don’t insult me where I live. Hey,” he told Bucky as he noticed him standing there. “Nice to meet you, Head and Shoulders. I’m Logan.”

“To his friends. He’s James on his business card.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Logan insisted. When he shook Bucky’s hand, his grip was warm and firm, and his blue eyes were webbed with crinkles at the corners. This was a guy who loved a good laugh. His thick, dark hair was glossy and unruly despite a careful haircut, like he had a habit of tugging on it, and he sported a truly impressive set of sideburns. His nose looked like it had been broken more than once, but it didn’t stop him from being handsome. Bucky wanted to sit down with him and hear the stories that led to it looking that way, but this was a business stop.

“Bucky. Technically James, but I only answer to it when my mom’s mad at me.”

“Ha! Me, too, pal, me too. Nice.”

“Bucky is my new assistant, if he decides to work with me,” Steve began.

“Yeah, it ain’t fer the faint of heart, kid,” Logan teased as he gave Steve’s shoulder a brief cuff. “Nah. I hafta give Rogers here shit. Otherwise, he wouldn’t know I love him. He knows that.”

“Love hurts…” Steve whined dramatically, but he was grinning, and Bucky immediately felt at home.

“Anyway, glad you came in to pick up yer shit, Steve. Come on back.” They followed Logan into the back door and Bucky goggled at the full design studio that he never would have guessed was hiding in this seeming hole-in-the-wall suite. It was large and airy and well-lit. Tidy light tables, design desks, and mat cutting tables were lined up around the room. The walls featured color swatch posters showing the Pantones that the shop offered, and there were pricing guides and pamphlets tucked neatly into racks by the back desk. Logan led them to it and beckoned to them to sit on the nailhead-studded, comfortable brown leather chairs.

“Here are the posters we came up with,” Logan told them. “Some for the front lobby and a few for downtown.”

“Nice. I’m glad the number’s printed where people can see it to call to buy tickets,” Steve mentioned. “That’s nice.”

“The colors are really sharp,” Bucky added. The graphics were tasteful, and Bucky enjoyed the side view of Steve looking relaxed behind a kitchen island, lowering the blade of a Kitchen-aid into a metal bowl and smiling at someone off to the side. A head-on picture would have looked too much like a cheesy stock photograph. This worked. And it worked well.

“All right. So, it’s a go?”

“Yup.”

“Good. Let’s settle up.” Logan handed him the invoice, and Steve whipped out his company card.

“Hey. Let me get your name and details, kid. If yer gonna be picking up for Steve, then I wanna recognize yer number on the caller ID when we get busy. During this time of year, it’s fucking _nuts_ , and we get slammed with orders. Everyone’s doing Christmas promotions and Black Friday sales and flash sales. This guy’s one of my best customers. My shop handles his orders with kid gloves.”

“That’s fine.” Bucky wrote out his name and number on the Post-It stack that Logan shoved across the desk at him, and Logan typed it into his database for Steve’s account.

“Sweet. And… done. Good enough. I don’t know what it is about you, kid, but you have this thing going with the way you walk into a room. Like your Steve’s protective big brother that’ll kick anyone’s ass for looking at him sideways.”

Steve and Bucky exchanged incredulous looks. “Geez, Buck, do you hear this guy?”

“And people tell me _I_ talk shit,” Bucky agreed, even though he wondered what he was projecting. What his face was doing when he looked at Steve, once his friend. Now, his boss.

*

They left the shop and ran more errands so Bucky could get an idea of Steve’s routine.

“Dry cleaners on Monday. Groceries on Tuesday. Print shop pickups as needed. I try to get home for lunch to walk the dog, but if something comes up, that falls to you. Ralph is an awesome dog, but he needs structure.”

“I get it, Steve.”

On their way to the bakery, a young woman accosted them. She was wide-eyed and eager and standing too close. “Hi, I recognized you from your show, Steve! Can I get a selfie?”

“I’m a little busy,” he told her politely, and he smiled, but Bucky could feel his tension rise with her proximity.

“Oh, please? Just a quick one, it’ll only take a second!” And she punched in her screensaver and flipped through her apps to her camera.

“That’s really not…” Steve winced as she pressed herself up against him, held out her arm, and snapped the shot without his permission, which, frankly, made Bucky hot under the collar.

“Can we get another one?”

“No. You can’t,” Bucky told her curtly. She looked bewildered at the refusal.

“I didn’t think he’d mind.”

“Well, I mind,” Bucky told her as he took Steve’s hand and yanked him along with him into the bakery, Crumb Snatchers on Ninth. “We have things to do and places to be. Please, just put that away. Technically, you didn’t get his permission to take that, so you should delete it.”

“Hell, no!” she blurted out, but she clutched her phone to her chest and dashed off in the opposite direction.

“God, the nerve of some… what?”

“You. Uh. You’re still. Holding my hand.”

“Did you see that bullshit, Stevie? Hey, look, danishes!”

“Buck-”

“That smells like French roast coffee.”

“You can let go of me.”

Bucky only then realized that he was still gripping Steve’s hand, swinging it slightly as he took in the interior of the shop. “Uh. Guess you want. Your hand. Back.”

“Kinda need it.” Steve quirked his brow, amusement dancing in his eyes, and Bucky tucked his hands into his pockets.

“Sorry.”

“No biggie.”

Steve was rocking back and forth on his heels, looking amused still even as a tall, gorgeous woman beckoned to him from behind the counter. She was easily as tall as Steve, even in flat-heeled shoes, and like him, she was in amazing physical shape for someone who baked sweets for a living. Her red apron failed to hide her soft, ripe curves, and long, lustrous white cornrows spilled down her back. “Hey. I have everything all boxed up and ready to go. Who’s your friend?”

“He’s my assistant,” Steve corrected her, but Bucky wanted to tell her that he was technically both. Sort of. “This is Bucky.”

“Oh. No more Brock.”

“Nope.”

“Thank the goddess. I was so sick of that man. Steve. _Steve_. That man brought such dark, ugly energy in through my front door every time he came in here. I told him I was out of blueberry muffins the last time he came in, even though I had a fresh batch in the back.”

“That’s a little petty.”

She held up her thumb and forefinger, with very little space in between. “Just a bit. Just a touch. Tim was waiting for him outside. I just… I just couldn’t. Nobody’s got time for that.”

“Sure ain’t,” Bucky agreed.

“Ororo Munroe,” she told Bucky as she held out her hand. “Welcome to my second home.”

“It’s not as sweet as you, but it’s close.”

“Uh-huh!” She nodded, winking at Steve, and she held out a plate of samples, various broken wedges of cookies. “Try the snickerdoodle and the gingersnap, sweetheart. I used organic molasses in the second one, it’s to _die_ for.”

“Are either of them gluten-free?” Steve asked.

“No, but I saved you some of my gluten-free jam thumbprints and a few of the peanut butter chip ones that you liked so much the last time you came in here. I take care of my boy.”

“I know you do.”

“Gimme some sugar.” Ororo reached over and air-kissed him across the counter.

She gave Bucky the large pink box and had Steve sign the credit slip before she slid it down onto the spindle. “You’re all settled up and good to go. Bucky, don’t be a stranger.”

“You’ll see a lot of me.”

“Can’t wait.”

The shop gave him warm fuzzies when he left it.

Steve’s watch buzzed at him before they headed back down the street. The text from Ororo had a bunch of heart-eyed emojis. 

_Did I see him running interference for you with that girl outside when she wanted a selfie? KEEP THAT MAN!_

Steve snickered before he wrote back, _It’s not like that._

Ororo wrote back, _Sure, it isn’t._ There was a cry-laughing emoji along with it, and then _You’re so cute when you’re oblivious._

*

The day had been full, and Bucky was surprised at how tired he was when he reached Steve’s house again and went to hand Steve his time card. They’d toured the filming studio, Bucky had met most of the staff, and they picked up takeout Indian food. Bucky tried to hand Steve a twenty to cover his half, but Steve refused him.

“Hey. This wasn’t terrible. Just… let me know, okay? If you think this is going to work out, or if you don’t?”

“It’ll be fine, Steve. What could possibly go wrong?”

Steve’s misgivings flitted over his face for a moment, but he shrugged. “See you Monday, Buck.”

“See you later, Stevie.”


	3. Don't Do Me Any Favors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need you to be on the ball. I need you in my corner. If you work for me, you’re in my circle of trust.”
> 
> “Your… wait. Your circle of trust. You just said that. You just quote DeNiro at me from ‘Meet the Parents’?”
> 
> “That’s not the point.”
> 
> “That _is_ the point. That movie’s ridiculous. You didn’t just tell me that with a straight face.”

The angle of the sun in Bucky’s room felt wrong as he woke up. He scrubbed at his face as he rolled over in bed to grab his phone where it lay charging on the side table. Why was it so bright?

He checked the time, blinking away the cobwebs, and instantly yelled, “FUCK!” Alpine mewed at him in annoyance, squinting as she stretched. Bucky threw aside the covers and searched for his discarded pajama pants. How was it already 7:20? He only had twenty minutes to get on the road to Steve’s and start the day.

His apartment had seemed orderly enough to him when he collapsed into bed the night before, but now, in the stark light of day, Bucky felt like none of his favorite clothes were within reach as he rummaged through the closet and the drawers. He struggled to find clean underwear and socks, his favorite sneakers were missing, and someone hid his deodorant. The best thing about living alone was that no one took your stuff; the worst part was that if you still couldn’t find it, you had no one but yourself to blame. Bucky shed his clothes in the bathroom and climbed into the shower, turning on the water and hopping back out of range from the spray when it turned out to be icy-cold. Alpine followed him into the bathroom and hopped up onto the toilet lid, deciding it was an ideal perch to groom herself.

Bucky made slapdash effort, lathering all of his vital parts, dunking his head under the barely-warm spray, and scrunching a handful of shampoo into his hair, hoping he managed to rinse out all of it before he had to comb it. The shower was too short; just as the water finally heated up enough to feel good on his sore joints, he had to drag himself back out. 

Bucky was dressed within five minutes, skipped his shave, and managed to find shoes, a slightly mismatched pair of socks (both black but different colored strips and logos around the cuffs, the world wouldn’t end, would it?), car keys, and the heel of a bag of bread that he shoved into the toaster for a couple of minutes before shoving it into his mouth. He pulled the top half of his hair into a passable ponytail, hoping he met Steve’s grooming standards. Then, Bucky reminded himself that he wasn’t the one in front of a camera. He tipped the dry cat food bag into Alpine’s bowl, knowing she wouldn’t mind that he’d been a little heavy handed, and Bucky gave her head a little scritch before he rushed off. “Bye, baby girl,” he cooed. She ignored him as she attacked the bowl with loud, purring crunches.

Bucky caught the first spike of morning traffic, because of course he did. His gas tank needle hovered precariously close to “E” and he cursed his lack of planning, but there was no help for it. He sat in the tangle of cars rolling slowly forward, pausing, then rolling again for the next five agonizing minutes. He hoped Steve wasn’t a stickler for punctuality, but he knew he was clutching at straws. Bucky _despised_ being late. Normally, he was up at dawn, and most mornings he even took a run to get his day off to a good start, but the previous day had been a _lot_.

He made it to the studio with a minute and a half to spare. Before he even had the chance to look for Steve, the receptionist had him sign in.

Then, she handed him an envelope. “Here. It’s your company card. Steve left it for you this morning. Go get his coffee and his dry cleaning. You’ll leave it at Wardrobe for him when you get back, and then we’ll hook you up with Tech Support to set up your desktop.”

“I get a desktop?”

“You get an office. It’s the size of a shoebox, but it’s yours. And it’s right next to his.”

“Holy shit…”

“Hey, you’ve gotta at least pretend you work here, right?”

“I’m just a temp.”

“Steve doesn’t feel like going through the hassle of hiring someone else. It gives him anxiety. Anxious Steve Rogers isn’t a pretty sight, buddy.” She reached out and squeezed Bucky’s wrist and leaned in, giving Bucky a conspiratorial look. “ _Don’t_ ruffle his feathers. Don’t rile him up. Just smile calmly and tell him, ‘I’ll get it done, Steve.’”

“That’s not confidence inspiring.”

“Just remember that you were given sensible advice, and my work is done here.” Her name plaque identified her as “Kate” and there was a Hello Kitty sticker over her face on her badge. Other than that, she was dressed for business in a smart gray skirt suit and cream blouse. 

And, like that, his phone rang in his pocket.

“Hello?”

“Are you in the building yet? Where are you?”

That was Steve. His baritone already held a note of panic in it. Bucky sighed.

“Down in the lobby.”

“You got the word that I wanted my dry cleaning picked up?”

“And your coffee.”

“Crumb Snatchers. Ororo’s clerk knows my order, she’s a genius. Tip her big, okay?”

It was Steve’s card. Bucky shrugged. “Got it.”

“Don’t lollygag, okay? We’ve got a full docket today.”

“Got it.”

“I’ll get it done, Steve,” Kitty murmured under her breath as she clicked through her emails. “Don’t forget it, that will save your _life_.”

Bucky gave her a tight smile. She raised her brows back at him.

“It doesn’t hurt to show up a little early,” Steve coached as Bucky headed back out the door.

“Okay. Duly noted.”

“I took Ralph out for his morning walk today, but it might save me a little time today if you could manage his afternoon walk at the park-”

“Make me a list.”

“I already emailed you. Which you might have known if you had come early for Tech Support to meet you at your office, but hey. What do I know?”

“Jesus, Stevie…”

Bucky thought he heard the crack of his smile on the other end of the call.

“See you back soon.”

Bucky had the feeling that wasn’t going to be the last phone call from Steve that day.

Bucky reached the bakery and Ororo winked a greeting at him from her busy counter while Jubilee, her barista, automatically handed him Steve’s coffee order and a small pastry box. 

“Make sure he gets his muffin. It’s the cranberry one, it’s gluten-free. It’s his favorite,” Jubilee told Bucky.

“Will do.”

He scribbled a big tip on the receipt as she ran his card. She cracked her gum at him. 

“So. You’re the fresh meat. Steve’s high maintenance, but he’s a sweetheart. Take good care of him. Between you and me, I couldn’t stand Brock.”

“Kind of a dick?”

“That’s insulting to dicks,” she confirmed. “He was a shitheel.”

“Fair enough.”

“Still, though. Take good care of him.”

“I will.”

“Or I’ll come find you.”

“Okay. Okay.”

She made shooty fingers at him on his way out to drive home the point. Bucky contemplated the ride to the dry cleaners, deciding it was close enough that maybe Steve’s breakfast and coffee would still be warm by the time he got back to the station.

The counter was swarming with customers by the time he walked inside, and Bucky groaned, until a young man at the register checked his phone and peered above the crowd toward the door. “Hey,” he called out, “are you Bunky? Uh… wait. Buck… Bucky?”

“Yes.”

“Cool, cool… here.” He waved him over, and the other customers craned around in annoyance as Bucky snuck to the head of the line. He handed Bucky a heavy garment back by the hanger hook, and Bucky immediately traded him the card for it. He ran it with one neat swipe, smiled as the screen said it was approved, and ripped off two receipts, giving Bucky one to sign. Bucky crammed the other into his pocket and kept on stepping. Apparently, Steve’s name opened doors and shortened lines.

Bucky managed to get back to the TV station and Kitty told him “Third floor, down the hall, two doors to the left” as he booked it for the elevator. “And, hey. Next time, try to wear a shirt with a collar. Just a thought.”

“Sorry. Laundry day,” he called back.

“No excuses!” 

Right.

Bucky headed up and nearly ran into a key grip on his way out, shot them a quick apology, and then doubled back down the correct hall. He caught his reflection in the glass wall panes and cringed a little. His hair was flying and the edge of his shirt was untucked, his reward for being hasty and waking up late. Bucky found Steve’s office and halted in the doorway expectantly. Steve was wearing a bluetooth on his ear and typing at his keyboard. He held up his hand for a moment, beckoning to Bucky not to interrupt him yet. Bucky set the coffee cup down on the corner of the desk. Steve immediately moved it closer to him and set a _coaster_ under it. His eyes gave Bucky a wounded look. Bucky just smiled in a way that he hoped looked calm. He set the pastry box down on the chair and tucked in the hem of his henley, but Steve gave him a look of alarm, motioning toward the box. Bucky reached down and collected it again, realizing his hair was going to have to stay jacked up until Steve relieved him of his burden.

“...you don’t have any morning appointments? I’ll have to get back to you, my assistant just got here. I’ll have him call you back. Sure. Just the cleaning. Thank you. Bye.” Steve rang off the call and leaned back in his chair. “God, Bucky, it’s been a morning. I could have really used your help a few minutes ago.”’

“Oh. Kay.” He held out the muffin box. 

“Where’s my dry cleaning?”

“In my car.”

“Can you bring it to Wardrobe? I don’t want anything to happen to it.”

“In a minute. I have to head back down soon, anyway. I need to put gas in my tank.”

“You didn’t do that last night?” Steve asked in dismay.

“I didn’t. I got home too late, and-”

“Bucky. Buck. Look.”

Steve paused, leaning forward in his seat, fingers steepled in front of him. Bucky steeled himself for something aggravating to come out of his mouth.

His former middle school best friend didn’t disappoint him.

“I need you to be on the ball. I need you in my corner. If you work for me, you’re in my circle of trust.”

“Your… wait. Your circle of trust. You just said that. You just quote DeNiro at me from ‘Meet the Parents’?”

“That’s not the point.”

“That _is_ the point. That movie’s ridiculous. You didn’t just tell me that with a straight face.”

“Bucky! Come on. I’m serious, here.”

“Go on, then.” 

“I need your help. I’m a busy man, and I know you’re just getting back into work from whatever your situation is.”

Bucky huffed and nodding, smiling, even though he felt himself fuming.

“But I need you to get with the program.”

“I am with the program. Full speed ahead, Captain.”

“What? Is that supposed to be funny?”

“Nope.”

“Can you just help me today? Please?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“After you gas up your car, I need help with rebooking a couple of appointments. Tech Support networked your Outlook into my calendar, so that’s gonna be your playground this week. Get familiar with it.”

“That’s fine.”

Steve took his coffee, and Bucky waited for him to take a sip. “Mmmm,” Steve hummed. Instead of a thank you, he said, “Bet this was good when it was still hot.”

“It was probably amazing,” Bucky agreed, sighing.

“You’re new. I get it.”

“Sure.”

“Aaaaaand, anyway.”

“Yesssss…?”

“Wardrobe.”

“I’ll bring your dry cleaning up-”

“I mean yours. That’s a little more casual than business casual, this look you’ve got going on here.”

“I’ll work on it.”

“You’ll work on it.” Steve sounded unconvinced.

“So, you think you’re a big shot, now?” Bucky folded his arms across his beefy chest, and Steve noticed with a mix of admiration and resentment that the cranberry red henley was stretched snugly over his pecs. Barnes wore his shirts that tight on _purpose, damn it_. Steve planted his hands on his hips and shrugged. 

“A half a dozen magazine covers in the past year alone don’t refute that assumption.”

“And now, you’ve got a big head, too.” That was humor and scorn in Bucky’s voice, reflected in those icy gray eyes of his.

“You’re such a _jerk!_ Steve barked, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he was even letting Barnes take up one more minute of his time, let alone taking him on as an employee.

It was a match made in _hell_.

“When I have a couple of paychecks under my belt, I’ll dress to the nines, pal. But, in the meantime, this is as good as it gets, and I’ve been told my ass looks _great_ in these jeans.”

Steve’s lips curled. “Now, who has the big head?”

Bucky huffed. “I’m gonna fill up my tank.”

“Use the card.”

“What?”

“Use. The card.” Steve shrugged as he tore off a piece of his muffin and popped it into his mouth. “One of the perks of working for me.”

“Aren’t you just the man of the hour,” Bucky said before he turned on his heel and left.

He was right, Steve realized; his ass really _did_ look spectacular in those jeans.

*

Sometimes, a truly off day could be fixed by playing with a dog.

Bucky waded through Tech Support’s setup of his desktop, work cell phone, the activation of his badge access to all of the applicable areas of the studio, and a brief meeting with Pepper about his timecards.

“Paper is trackable,” she explained to him. “Just in case the system crashes, we want you to get paid.”

“Works for me.”

“Speaking of working for us,” Pepper inquired, “how is that going?”

“It’s. Intense.”

“Meaning Steve?”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t worry. You can think it. You can say it, it’s pretty much the consensus. But, he’s a good egg. He has a huge heart.”

“I know that. I saw his scar.”

She looked intrigued. “His scar?”

“He might not have told you, but we knew each other as kids. I remember when he had his heart surgery.”

Her face softened, and she let out a drawn-out “Aaaawwwwwwww.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s so… wow. I know he’s been through a lot, but I can’t even imagine going through that as a _kid_.”

Bucky made a sound of agreement, even though he wondered what Steve had been through that was so rough, as an adult. He looked for all intents and purposes like he was living his best life, all rainbows and kittens and perfectly tucked hospital corners. Guy made Martha Stewart look like an uncultured slob.

Bucky left that meeting and headed back to Steve’s house. He no sooner parked his Mustang when he heard Ralph’s barks from inside, and Bucky grinned. This task, he wouldn’t mind. “Hey, boy,” Bucky told him as he ruffled the fur at the back of his neck. “Who’s a big sweetheart? Yes, he is.” Then Bucky randomly asked, “Where’s your Frisbee?” And the dog was off like a shot, darting into the living room. Bucky heard the scuffle, and the dog hurried back with a battered blue Frisbee that boasted a few years’ worth of teeth marks. Bucky laughed at that and saw the retractable leash and harness on the kitchen counter. Okay. Steve’s expectations were high, but he was willing to work with Bucky.

“Help me help you, pal,” Bucky said. He sighed as he wrestled Steve’s mutt into the harness, getting heartily licked for his troubles. “I don’t need another bath, Ralphie.”

He locked up, and they were off. Bucky parked and fed the meter for an hour, and he walked the dog around the trails for a good twenty minutes, allowing Ralph to shower a few bushes and tree trunks. Ralph stared up at Bucky almost apologetically when he copped a squat to do his thing. Bucky wrinkled his nose as he thought to himself, _This is exactly why I have a cat._ Thank the Lord for scoopable, clumping litter. Bucky bagged up the waste, chucked it into the can, and they got back to their walk. They found the dog run shortly, and Bucky learned that Ralph was a regular. A couple of teenagers there squealed when they saw him and accosted Bucky.

“Hey. Where’s Brock?”

“I’m him, for now.”

“You work for Steve?”

“Sure do.”

“Sweet! Hey, Ralphie! Come here, baby!”

Bucky wondered how someone as buttoned-up as Steve had such an easygoing dog. Ralph didn’t try to wrap Bucky around trees with his leash or run off. He was perfectly behaved and so, so smart. Bucky winged the Frisbee for him, and Ralph dashed after it with happy yips, body arcing and twisting in the air as he caught it. He brought it back and dropped it at Bucky’s feet instead of playing tug-of-war with the toy. 

“This is the best dog,” Bucky mused aloud.

“That’s Steve’s baby,” one of the teens agreed. “Protect him with your _life_.”

Bucky’s frustration with the morning eased and melted away, and he regretted that he needed to break for lunch and get back to the station soon. Ralph whined in protest but came along when Bucky reattached his leash. He put him back inside and refilled his water dish, and Bucky laughed when he heard the dog’s noisy laps as he slurped it down.

“Later, boy.” Bucky offered as he left. “Go lay down, okay?”

Ralph, proving once again that he was better than any human Bucky had ever met, obeyed and just thumped his tail as Bucky locked up.

*

His good mood faded halfway through the afternoon. 

Steve practically _leaned_ on his “Hit Send” button in Outlook as he sent Bucky request after request. Bucky got the hang of Steve’s calendar and made calls to his dentist to rebook his cleaning after he found out that it conflicted with his massage, and then rebooked it _again_ when the hygienist called back to let Bucky know that they could fit in Steve’s whitening, after all. Bucky ran a couple more errands and watched Kitty looking amused at him every time he returned.

The silliest part of it was Steve’s texts, which always began with “I need a favor” like the task wasn’t part of Bucky’s _actual job_.

What was _with_ this guy?

*

That first week was like that. Bucky gradually began staying for tapings of the show, which… actually turned out to be fun. It was neat to see just how much prep work went into the show behind the scenes. Wardrobe. Makeup. Lighting. Sound effects. Props. Food prep of the finished product and the in-progress trays, put together by food stylists - stylists! - that made it look good on camera.

“The average American viewer needs to believe they can reproduce this at home without the end product looking like a bowl of dog shit,” Piotr explained to Bucky as he plated a gorgeous fillet and asparagus beside a complicated rice dish that smelled vaguely of saffron. “Some of the recipes are simple, though, without buying a lot of weird supplies and gadgets. That’s what makes it the ‘Bitchen Kitchen.’”

“Steve’s ma couldn’t cook,” Bucky remarked.

Piotr looked aghast. “What?!”

“She couldn’t. She was an RN and she worked all weird hours. We ate a ton of takeout and frozen pizzas at his house.”

“That’s because she worked her way through nursing school and didn’t qualify for a lot of financial aid until my dad passed away.”

Bucky felt a rash of embarrassment and shame. He realized Steve’s history probably wasn’t his to tell way too late. But Steve didn’t look angry. “When I came up with the idea of ‘Real food for real people,’ I was thinking of Ma,” Steve explained simply. “She could burn the hell out of a grilled cheese.”

Piotr laughed knowingly and clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ve all burned them at least once.”

“I miss your ma’s grilled cheese,” Bucky admitted.

“About that. Come with me.”

Bucky winced, but Steve let Bucky precede him out of the studio, and Bucky felt an odd flush of warmth from Steve’s hand, placed gently at the middle of his back.

“So,” Steve told him. “I need you to book my travel arrangements. I’m gonna see Ma for Thanksgiving.”

“Which airline?”

“Jet Blue, if you can. More leg room.”

“Right.” Bucky jotted it down and gave back the pen he borrowed from the gaffer as he passed by. He tucked the note into his shirt pocket; the buttondown was a little faded, but the color brought out his eyes. 

“That’s not a terrible look on you.”

“You flatterer. I’m touched. Really.”

“I’m sorry if I came on a little strong about your clothes, before.”

“You aren’t _that_ sorry. And I might have looked a little too much like a guy who just rolled out of bed, because maybe I had just rolled out of bed. It’s okay.” Bucky could act grown up. Somewhat.

“I can be picky.”

“Yes. You can.”

“It’s just how I’m wired.”

“I know.”

“It’s how I make things _work._ ”

“You don’t have to explain it, Stevie.”

“Sometimes, you just do this thing with your face when I ask you to do things.”

“That’s just my face.”

A hint of a smile pulled at Steve’s lips. He patted Bucky on the back again. 

“Okay. Travel booking. Hotel?”

“No. I’m staying at Ma’s.”

“Car rental or super shuttle?”

“Rental.”

“Hybrid?”

“If they have it, but I’m not a stickler. You see that Navigator in my garage?” Steve looked a little guilty about it, too, since another theme of his show was sustainable food sourcing and leaving a smaller carbon footprint, but there you had it. “It’s about five years old. It’s my baby, and I’m not ready to trade it up yet.”

“When do you want to fly out?”

“Wednesday afternoon after taping.”

“Airport’s gonna be crowded.”

“It’s worth it to see Ma. And I hate taking the red-eye.”

Bucky agreed with him. Despite the usual miracles that the makeup department worked on him, Steve was looking a little drawn and worn around the eyes. If anyone needed to see his ma for the holiday, it was him.

“What are you gonna do about Ralphie?”

“House sitter,” Steve explained. “I’m not kenneling him again. He hates it.”

“Good. He needs to be in his own bed and have his own stuff.”

“If you can understand that, then you know why I feel the way I do about uninvited guests.”

“Sure, Stevie.”

“You know I have a point.” Steve held up his hand to his ear, waiting for Bucky to agree with him more heartily. “No?”

“You threatened to sic Ralph on that solar panel salesman that was canvassing the neighborhood a couple of days ago.”

“Because they’re annoying.”

“Hey. I mean. You’re not wrong.”


	4. Never the Same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then one day, _poof_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's coming along. Sort of.

It felt strange to have time to himself. Working for Steve Rogers was intense.

Bucky relaxed with his cat taking up her customary spot on the center of his chest, lightly flicking her tail against the seam of his elbow while Bucky paged through his Roku menu. It felt nice after a grueling week. Bucky had spent most of the afternoon going through his personal Web mail inbox, deleting Black Friday offers that he knew he would never use, calling Becca, and neatening up his apartment, which was growing cluttered and disorganized from spending _too little_ time in it. From the moment he woke up until he came staggering back in after dark, Bucky just ran and ran and _ran_. Errands. Gas tank fillups. Coffee. Groceries. Paying the housekeeper. Watering Steve’s lawn. Bringing in the paper and mail. Sorting through the bills and updating the day planner. Maintaining the blog site and his social calendar. 

Steve gave Bucky the whole four days off, Thanksgiving Eve, Thanksgiving Day, and the weekend, and he was as good as his word. Perfect radio silence until Bucky had to pick him up at the airport on Sunday night. Bucky was on the fence about spending Thanksgiving with his family and facing the music. _What’s it like working for Steve Rogers? Is he that cute in person? When are you going to bring him home? Does he remember when you two were friends in school?_ Steve was living rent-free in his head as it was just from constantly seeing each other every day. “I need a favor.” Sure, Steve. A favor. And Bucky needed a _break_.

Yet, Bucky wondered how Sarah Rogers was doing. Holidays had to be tough when you were a widow and had recently retired. Steve casually mentioned that she lived in a nice gated apartment complex and still regularly attended Pilates class. Sarah staunchly enforced a no-contact rule with her neighbors who sought autographs or selfies with her son, and for the most part, they left Steve alone, occasionally just waving at “Sarah’s boy” from a distance as he carried her clothes to the laundry room or checked her mailbox. Steve would be able to visit his ma in peace, bake a pie or two, and leave his show to his staff and their guest chefs for a couple of days. 

Bucky went to his gym that weekend, hogging his favorite treadmill for almost an hour, getting in some reps, and soaking his troubles away in the Jacuzzi. His shoulder thanked him for it; it was never really the same after his injury, which his old physical therapist warned him about, but it was better. Mostly.

His first paycheck from the temp agency wasn’t impressive, but Bucky realized that he’d saved some money on gas (thanks, Steve), meals (more perks from other local businesses who comped Steve with freebies) and parking. Pepper also surprised him with a gift card to Target.

“Everyone on staff gets one,” she explained.

“I’m not staff.”

“Of course you are. Happy Thanksgiving. Or Friendsgiving. Are you spending it with anyone?”

“Not this time around. My sister invited me, but I just don’t have the spoons for it this year. I might do Christmas at my parents’.”

“Good. Spend some time with your family. They’re important.”

Natasha had some strong opinions at his insistence at spending the holiday with just Alpine, and she voiced them to his face when she showed up Friday morning with Tupperware filled with leftovers, Clint in tow. 

“It’s freezing in here, James,” she complained as she gave him a fragrant hug.

“It gets stuffy if I crank the heat too high.”

“No it doesn’t, you tightass,” Clint argued. “You’re just cheap. It’s cold as balls in here.”

“I thought you were working,” Natasha added as she opened the lid to the leftover stuffing and potatoes. She started filling one of Bucky’s plates for him when she noticed the lack of food smells or dirty dishes. She knew that he hated to cook.

“I am. It’s gonna take a while to get my bank account back in the red.”

“You look tired.”

“I’m thrashed. Tired isn’t even the word for it. Steve runs me ragged.”

“Well, tell him to stop that. Don’t make _me_ tell him.”

“Seriously, don’t make her. Natalia’s mean,” Clint warned as he sat down on Bucky’s couch. Alpine automatically hopped up into his lap and applied a liberal coat of cat hair to his flannel shirt.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Did you know that Bitchen Steve is Steve Rogers who we went to school with?” Bucky told them.

Clint looked equal parts amused and horrified. “Wait. _Little Steve Rogers? He’s_ Bitchen Steve?”

“Oh, he’s bitchen, all right.”

Nat smirked. “I should have guessed. He always had that gleam in his eye. And he was angry.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Clint argued.

“Yes, he was. He hated injustice. Poor guy was always getting shoved into his locker or getting ‘swirlied’ or wedgied, but he’d threaten to kick the ass of anyone who picked on anyone else. You remember that, Bucky, right?”

Bucky was just tasting a dollop of mashed potatoes as she asked him that, and he used the excuse of his mouth being full to merely nod and shrug.

“Best revenge is living well, I guess,” Clint reasoned. “Alpine. Baby. Quit digging in your claws. Ow, ow. Okay. That’s enough. You’re cute, but you’re reminding me of one of my ex-girlfriends. Quit that.”

“Call it ‘living well’ if you want to,” Bucky said. “He’s a stress case.”

“Really? I don’t get that about him, somehow.” Natasha stared at Bucky as she waited for his plate to heat up in the microwave. “He always seems so easygoing on his show.”

“Wait til the camera stops rolling. He gave me a ten-minute lecture about the evils of corn syrup solids when he caught me eating a Pop Tart.” Bucky sighed. “He means well. But he’s driving me batshit.”

“But, like you said. He means well.” Natasha chucked Bucky under his chin. “He wants you to stay healthy.”

“No. He wants me to be as crazy as he is. He’s neurotic, Nat.”

“Hello? Pot, meet kettle,” Clint called from the sofa. “Remember that time that you threatened to take my head off for moving your nail clippers? And it turned out I never moved them? You left them on the edge of the shower door again, where you always leave them, but you were so convinced that you put them in the medicine cabinet where they actually belong? Because I sure remember that.”

“And you still sound a little bitter, honey,” Natasha said. “It’s Thanksgiving, my love. Let it go.”

“This is why you can’t have roommates anymore, Bucky!”

“Clint. Let it go.”

Bucky tucked into the leftovers from his recliner while his best friends played with his cat.

“So, you’re doing okay?”

“I’m fine, Natasha.”

“It’s so funny that you’re working for Steve. You two used to be so close. What happened?”

Bucky paused in dragging a strip of turkey through a puddle of brown gravy. “It’s. It’s complicated.”

“I dunno,” Clint said, shrugging. “It’s not _that_ complicated. People grow apart.”

“Not those two, though,” Nat countered. “They were thick as thieves. Then one day, _poof._ Nothing. No more hanging out.”

“Guess you guys just have to make up for lost time, then.”

“Sure, Clint. Sure.”

When they weren’t driving each other fucking _nuts_.

*

Bucky sometimes shoved that day out of his mind, the day that Natasha hinted at, even though she wasn’t aware of it. It existed, and Bucky kept placing the memory of it back on the shelf, way up high, so he wouldn’t have to deal with it. Nobody really wanted to own the moment they shoved the most important person in their life out of it on their ass. 

Bucky and Steve had been tight, once. Play dates. Cub Scout meetings. Gymnastics class. Tap dancing lessons that Bucky grew tired of after one season, but that Steve kept up through junior high. Middle school concert band. Art club, which became Steve’s first love when he discovered fabric design and watercolors. 

Bucky and Steve ran in different circles, but they always drifted back into each other’s orbit. Maybe it hadn’t been intentional, but Steve noticed that Bucky didn’t call Steve his best friend in front of other people as often once they made it to fifth grade. And sixth. And seventh. By eighth, they still met at each other’s houses and still hung out with the same level of enthusiasm. It was still automatic to seek Bucky out, or for Bucky to seek out Steve, but. It was different. Furtive. Clandestine. Steve didn’t quite understand why. Bucky would drop notes onto Steve’s open textbook in passing, and Steve would light up. _Your place for Super Mario Bros?_ Bucky would catch Steve’s eye briefly from the pencil sharpener. Steve would nod, and, well. From there, Steve would just stand by. Waiting.

Bucky was popular. Athletic. Things came easily to him, and he didn’t have anything like asthma or astigmatism or chronic migraines, scoliosis or janky heart valves holding him back. Bucky easily cruised past Steve in height by the time they were thirteen. Bucky got his braces off by freshman year, too. No rubber bands shooting out of his mouth at inopportune moments, and he could eat Gummi Bears again.

It was hard. The waiting. Steve always had to stand in line to spend time with Bucky. For a guy who was supposedly Bucky Barnes’ best friend, Steve sure felt like… well. Like he came last.

So, often Steve would ride his bike home, or the bus. He’d come inside, listen to his mother tell him about her clinicals, and eventually, her work shifts while she threw together something simple for dinner. Steve would grudgingly wash the dishes and take out the trash, starting his homework while he waited for Bucky to come over, or for the phone mounted to the kitchen wall to ring.

Steve remembered when they were old enough for their voices to crack. Bucky’s voice sounded deeper, had scratchier edges that made little thrills run through Steve’s gut whenever he called.

He always bolted up from wherever he was when Bucky called.

“Hey, asswipe. You home?”

“Well, duh. I picked up, didn’t I?”

“Can I come over?”

“Thought you’d be here by now.”

“See you in a few minutes.”

“Bucky’s coming over?”

“Yeah. Just for a little while,” Steve always promised, even though Bucky wouldn’t leave until Sarah started yawning from the dining room table and reminded them both that they had an early day in the morning.

So. The last time Bucky went to Steve’s house wasn’t really any different from any that came before it. Except for one detail. One strange, surreal, frightening moment where everything came crashing down.

Bucky parked his bike on Steve’s front porch and rapped on the screen door. Steve grinned out at him and stepped aside to let him in. “Hey. We’re having ravioli. Take off your shoes.” That was Sarah’s rule to avoid scuffs on her linoleum. That, and picking up chairs instead of dragging them across the floor. And no sitting on the arm of her vinyl-upholstered sofa with jeans on, since the pocket rivets dug into the fabric and tore it. That resulted in an unsightly piece of duct tape and a slipcover that never stayed put, no matter how many times Sarah retucked it.

Steve hung on Bucky’s every word and occasionally finished his sentences over dinner. Bucky enthused over Steve’s art projects (“I saw that sketch you drew Becca, Stevie. That was pretty good.”), while Steve bragged about Bucky doing a back handspring in the courtyard. Once Bucky stepped over the threshold of the Rogers front room, they became each other’s biggest fans.

Once Sarah retired from the living room and cleared the table, the boys settled down with the Game Cube and played until their hands cramped. Bucky smelled like the faded vestiges of his body spray and a hint of sweat. 

They might have talked about girls, a little.

“Semi-formal’s coming up.”

“I might not go.”

“Pssshhhtt… why not? Everybody’s going, Stevie.”

“Yeah. Nah.”

“C’mon! It’ll be fun! Show off some of those cool moves! You’re the one that stuck with dance class, Rogers.”

“Tap dancing, Bucky.”

“So? Just go. It’s not gonna be fun hanging out there without you, Steve.”

“It will if you take a date.”

“Then, we’ll both take a date.”

Bucky didn’t notice that his remark made Steve lose his concentration, and he crowed as he knocked Steve’s car off the road.

“Awww, Bucky!”

“Too slow, Stevie! Winners rule, losers drool! Whoo!”

“You _suck_.”

“Whatever, Stevie. C’mon. Go to the mall with me so we can pick out something to wear for it.”

“Buck. I mean it. I’m not going.”

“And I mean it when I say, yeah, you totally are.”

“Why? No one’s even gonna ask me to dance.”

“So? Ask them, then.”

“What? Ask a girl?”

“Why not?”

Steve steeled himself. “I can think of a whole bunch of reasons why.”

“Like what?”

“Can we please drop it?”

“No! I want you to give me one good reason why you don’t- HEY! Steve! STEVIE!”

Steve was up like a shot. Bucky just watched him, bewildered as he disappeared from the living room, and he heard his feet thundering upstairs. Bucky hit pause on the game and frowned. What had just happened?

Sarah peeked out of the kitchen, dish and towel in hand. “Everything okay?”

“Uh. It… was? I’m gonna. Go talk to Stevie.”

She gave him a puzzled smile but nodded, going back to her chore. Bucky took the steps two at a time, and he let himself into Steve’s room when he noticed the door was slightly ajar.

Steve was sitting on the bed, elbows leaned on his knees, with his long-fingered hands dangling down limply as he stared at the floor. When he glanced up at Bucky, his eyes were shiny and a little damp behind his glasses. Bucky snorted at him as he sat down beside him; the sag of the mattress made Steve bump up against him inadvertently while Bucky took up all the space. Bucky knocked his shoulder into Steve’s. “You really don’t wanna go, Stevie?” Bucky’s voice was soft.

“No.” Steve wiped his nose on his sleeve, then lowered his glasses long enough to flick away the moisture there, too.

“I could help you find a date.”

“No. You couldn’t. Girls aren’t into me, Bucky.”

“Maybe you just haven’t found the right one, yet.”

“There probably isn’t a right one, Buck.” Steve sounded a little breathy, and anxious.

“Not yet?”

“Maybe not _ever_.”

And then Steve turned to him, looking a little horrified about what he’d just said.

“Wait, did you just…?”

“No. No, no! I didn’t! I didn’t say anything, Bucky! Just, never mind. Okay? Can we drop it?”

“No, Stevie… I mean. I wanna talk about it.” Bucky felt himself panic a little when Steve bounded to his feet and started pacing the room. “We _can_ talk about it. If you want.”

Steve shook his head. He looked like he felt sick. He waved Bucky off and tried to smile, but it was a struggle. “No, we can just go back downstairs. I-I didn’t mean to...act weird on you, it’s just-”

“Steve?”

“What?”

Bucky patted the place beside him.

“What-”

“Sit. C’mere.”

Steve was worked up, radiating tension. His face was stricken, and his shoulders were shaking a little. His breathing was uneven, and when he sat beside him, he wouldn’t look at Bucky.

“Please tell me we’re still gonna be friends,” Steve pleaded.

“Course we are, Stevie.”

Bucky knocked his shoulder into Steve’s again, more firmly this time, making Steve laugh. It was a wet, noncommittal sound, but Bucky felt a little relieved. Steve still wasn’t looking him in the eye, though. That was offputting. He bumped up against Steve again, who bumped him back this time.

“Punk.”

“Jerk.”

“Asswipe.”

“Weirdo.”

Steve flinched, and this time Bucky reached for his hand to keep him still. And he felt the current that ran through his best friend since preschool, because suddenly, it ran through him, too, igniting every nerve. Steve’s pulse jumped. “Buck.” His voice was soft and uncertain, no longer joking, and Steve was close, so close that Bucky could see the pores of his skin and the sandy stubble over his upper lip, and those pretty blotches of color in his eyes behind his glasses. He could hear his shallow breathing and see the rise and fall of his narrow chest. Bucky’s own cheeks flushed when he looked at their joined hands and realized what he had done.

And then it seemed natural to crane around toward Steve where he sat, to reach for him and gently cup his jaw, and just lean in. Just to let gravity do what it wanted and pull them together. Bucky had already necked with girls, furtively, behind bleachers and on the back of the bus on occasion, and it was exciting, but every once in a while, he asked himself, _Is this how it’s supposed to feel?_ There was something missing that he couldn’t identify.

Steve answered that question with the brief tilt of his face and the soft, sweet brush of his lips, that ended before Bucky could even register it. He withdrew, but Bucky caught his chin with warm fingers and guided him back, chasing his mouth. He heard Steve’s breath catch, and his sigh of wonder, and Bucky’s body went up in flames when they kissed again in earnest. Steve didn’t taste like flavored lip gloss or smell like drug store perfume. Despite a few bumps of acne, his skin felt smooth and hot beneath Bucky’s palm, and when it skimmed down the side of his throat, gently wrapping itself around his nape to pull Steve closer, he felt that rapid pulse again and combed his fingers through the short, spiky blond hair. Bucky’s heart was pounding and he felt flutters of excitement in his stomach, was this what it felt like to have butterflies? Their hands were still joined, but Steve adjusted their grip; their fingers were laced together, like couples they saw at the mall or after school. Bucky’s kisses grew more insistent, urging Steve to open for him, and Steve moaned when Bucky sucked on his lower lip, then traced the seam of his mouth with the tip of his tongue.

_So this is what it’s like._ Steve lit up with the first tentative caress, and he met Bucky halfway. Each stroke felt like velvet. Steve heard his clock radio ticking in the background and the beating of his own heart, and Bucky’s breathing, and the crunch of mattress springs beneath them where they sat. It was overwhelming and crazy and _beautiful_ and so confusing, even though so much made so much more sense now, in those few, fleeting moments. Everything clicked into place, thrown into sharp focus.

And when it ended too soon, because it _had_ to, they sprang apart. Steve was breathing hard and flushed. His hair was a mess, Bucky’s lips were puffy and a deep, rosy pink, and the sound that had brought them back to reality was Sarah calling up to them, “Are you two finished playing this game?”

Before Steve could reply, Bucky called back, “Yes, Mrs. Rogers.”

And like that, the mood had evaporated.

“I’d better go,” Bucky told him.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. He was numb. Confused. It was too much to process.

“See you, Stevie.”

Steve sat there in shock for a moment as he watched Bucky exit his room. He heard the thud of his Air Jordans on the stairs, and in a mounting panic, Steve practically flew after him. “Buck,” he hissed, not wanting to raise any alarms with his ma. Bucky was moving fast, and the dawning horror that Bucky was running away from him - away from what they just did - felt like being hit with a bucket of icy water. 

“See you, Mrs. Rogers.”

“Bye, hon,” she called out as she straightened out the couch cushions and turned the television to one of her shows. “Steve, where are you going?”

“Nowhere, Ma, don’t worry about it,” Steve told her as he let himself out the front door, hot on Bucky’s tail.

“Buck, wait. Please,” Steve pleaded. Bucky was already carrying his bike down the short set of steps from the porch. He paused on the walkway. 

“What’s up, Steve?”

Steve briefly motioned over his shoulder, at a lack for words as he pointed in the vague direction of his room. “Was that… okay?”

“It was fine, Steve.”

Fine.

Plenty of things that weren’t great were fine. Like, your least favorite flavor of popsicle when it was the last one in the box. Or having to give up your space in line because someone else was in a bigger hurry, and you didn’t want to be an asshole about it. 

Steve’s hopes were dashed as he watched Bucky glide down the street on his bike.

And the next morning, there were no more notes dropped onto his open textbook or into his locker. The kitchen phone only rang for his ma, or if it was a telemarketer.

They were still civil with each other. An occasional nod. A wave. A borrowed pencil in math class, quickly returned. But it was never the same.

*

Clint and Nat stuck around for the afternoon, and they watched “Klaus” and “Jingle Jangle” on Netflix because Nat needed her fluff. Alpine enjoyed having two more sets of hands to cuddle her and dangle her toys just out of reach. 

“Why do the moms always have to die in these films? That’s such bullshit,” Natasha accused.

“Grief sells. And it’s the patriarchy and seeing the world through a male lens,” Clint told her. “Here, have the rest of my kettle corn, shnookums.”

“That was deep, Clint.”

“Wasn’t it?” They got all smoochy and annoying, and Bucky groaned, hiding his face behind a throw pillow.

“You two are so gross… God, you’re sickening.”

“It’s an art,” Natasha told him.

“Yeah, Bucky, it takes practice to be this gross.” They rubbed noses and exchanged soft looks, which just made it _so much worse_. But, it was nice. This was nice. Just having his friends within his immediate radius, being ridiculous, and feeding him, and petting his cat. 

“Are we on for Christmas?”

“I don’t know yet. I promised Becca I might go to see the folks. And it depends on work, now, too.”

“Steve is on vacation. Seems like he’d let you take a break if he’s taking a break.”

“Except it’s not really a break. I’m already going through the list of stuff he wants me to do for him on Monday after he gets back into town.”

“Don’t run yourself ragged, James.”

Oddly, though, Bucky felt an odd sense of excitement. He was looking forward to seeing Steve again. And he really wanted to hear how Sarah was doing.


	5. You've Really Got a Hold on Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey. Thanks for coming.”
> 
> “It’s what you pay me for.”
> 
> “I know. It’s still just nice that it’s you.” Steve bumped his shoulder again. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
> 
> Hearing that warmed Bucky, oddly. He failed to suppress his little smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's coming along. A little.

The airport was a crowded mess. Bucky held onto the top sheet of Steve’s itinerary for his return flight and watched the digital “Arrivals” screen anxiously, like an expectant dad. The charge on his phone was low, and Bucky eventually sat down and docked his phone with one of the chair arm decks. Steve wouldn’t be too happy if Bucky missed his call. 

“C’mon, Stevie.” Bucky kept his eyes trained on the escalators and the baggage carousels. He knew Steve was dressed more casually than usual for his trip, no doubt “going incognito” in one of his baseball caps and shades, which amused Bucky no end. Who else had that jawline? Or that mouth? Those _shoulders_? Who did he think he was fooling? Steve was like a kid covering his eyes and believing he was invisible.

Bucky’s phone pinged with a text. _Carousel six. Look for my bag, please._

“Sure, pal,” Bucky muttered, shaking his head. Leave it to Steve to put Bucky back to work before he’d even laid eyes on him. But Bucky at least knew what Steve’s bag looked like, charcoal gray with a Lilo and Stitch patch on the outer pocket. Bucky waited for the sound of the buzzer and the overhead announcement, “JetBlue flight 5555 incoming from Los Angeles deboarding at Terminal C, luggage unloading at carousel six” before he stood back up and took up a spot at the edge of the rotating belt. The “hurry up and wait” was his least favorite part of his job.

That, and being stuck in crowds. Bucky hated the feeling of people buffeting against him, reaching around him, past him, and generally making him feel like he was in the way. After two Army tours, Bucky didn’t travel that often for leisure. Packed airplanes made him claustrophobic, and Bucky refused to pay half a month’s salary to fly in a tin can. A gray bag on wheels rumbled by, but it didn’t have a patch. Three more that were nearly identical to it tumbled onto the belt, but he saw two other passengers remove them before he could even read the claim tags.

After the crowd thinned, Steve’s errant bag finally surfaced, and Bucky muttered, “Finally, _fuck_ ” as he caught the handle and yanked it from the belt. There was Lilo and Stitch, and Steve’s name on the claim tag, scrawled in his tidy print. Bucky ripped off the tag and crumpled it up, and then nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Steve’s voice just over his shoulder.

“Don’t litter. Use a can.”

“SHIT! Holy shit… don’t do that! Oh, you _asshole_!” Bucky yelped and clutched his chest. Steve was grinning at him, eyes dancing, and he looked well rested, but Bucky still clouted him in the shoulder. 

“Language.”

“You’re such a punk!”

“I’ll take my bag, now. Thanks for finding it.”

“I’d say you’re welcome, but that implies that I’m ever doing this for you again.”

“Hey. You work for me now, Buck, and I travel pretty often. I mean, you’re pretty buff already, but slinging my luggage around should keep you in pretty good shape.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes at Steve, who playfully knocked his shoulder with his. And for a second, it felt like old times.

“I’ll go get the car.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll just walk with you. I need to stretch my legs for a minute.” They joined the throngs of people exiting through the sliding glass doors, and Bucky led them toward the parking lot.

“Hey. Thanks for coming.”

“It’s what you pay me for.”

“I know. It’s still just nice that it’s you.” Steve bumped his shoulder again. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

Hearing that warmed Bucky, oddly. He failed to suppress his little smile. And he took Steve’s bag from him as they reached the curb.

As they crossed the street, a car came speeding down the lane from the freeway ramp, and Bucky hissed in alarm before he grabbed Steve’s arm and yanked him back. The car honked, and Bucky flipped him off. “Did you see that, Stevie?”

“Some people can’t drive to save their lives.”

“This _is_ Cali, but still, that was _bullshit_.” They made it safely to the other side of the road and into the parking garage before Steve told him, “You can let go of my arm, now.”

“Huh?”

“Ma used to cross the street with me like this when I was five,” Steve pointed out. 

Bucky was still holding onto his arm, “Oh. Guess you need that back.”

“At some point.”

Bucky gave his bicep a little squeeze before he released him. “Sorry.”

“We’re good.”

Bucky led them to Steve’s Navigator and unlocked it, set his bags in the trunk, and turned on the seat warmers before he ushered Steve into the passenger seat. Steve looked surprised, but pleased. “Take a load off, Rogers. Take a nap, if you want.”

“What service.”

They chatted and bickered most of the way home, though. Bucky was a careful nighttime driver, and the ride was calm as they watched street lights and headlights whizzing by. Panes of light flickered over Steve’s skin as they went through the tunnel. Bucky’s breath caught for a moment, but he sternly schooled himself to keep his eyes on the road.

They reached Steve’s house well after ten PM. Steve yawned and stretched, groaning with relief.

“I just wanna get off my ass for a while and climb into bed.” His voice sounded sleepy and yummy, and it was doing things to Bucky, and he forced himself to get out of the car and unload Steve’s bags. Then, he came around to the passenger side and opened his door. Steve laughed as he offered him his hand. “Okay, this is overdoing it a little.”

“I won’t be anywhere near this nice tomorrow when I’m back on the clock.”

“You get credit for travel, did you know that?”

Bucky beamed. “Sweet.” Then, “You need anything else, Rogers?”

“You checked the mail?”

“Yup. Right before I left. I left it with your house sitter. Guy’s a card.”

“Yeah. He sure thinks so. We still get along pretty great, even after we agreed things weren’t working.”

“Things? What things?”

“Sam. My house sitter. He’s also my ex-boyfriend.”

Bucky’s jaw clicked.

The reality of it hit him, then.

Steve was attractive. Talented. Wealthy. A household name. Bucky couldn’t just assume that Steve was single all the time just because he was _picky_. Right?

Right?

*

Right. Sam Wilson.

He was a card, all right.

There was something about him. Bucky knew they were exes, but whenever Steve was around Sam, which still happened occasionally, like last week, when he was housesitting for Steve and taking care of Ralph… it was like the frigging sun shone out of Sam Wilson’s ass. Steve hung on his every word. Fixed his cup of coffee the way he liked it and actually _tasted_ it for him before he’d let him drink it. 

It wasn’t like Bucky could blame Steve. After Steve’s trip home, Bucky settled back into his work week, checking the mail, walking the dog, dropping off the groceries as was now usual. But now, sometimes there was a cute little white Nissan parked out front, taking up Bucky’s space, making Bucky have to park out in the cul-de-sac, Bucky went up the walkway and knocked on the door, and he heard Steve’s resonant, booming laugh from behind it, followed by Sam’s. Bucky waited a few moments, then knocked again, and he finally saw Sam’s lean silhouette coming towards him from the foyer. “Hold on, Steve, let me get that, it might be the pizza guy, I have to tip him.”

“What are you tipping him, Sammy?”

“Don’t wear white after Labor Day and never talk to strangers.”

It was an old chestnut, but Bucky felt a frisson of jealousy when he heard Steve’s giggles, not to mention when Ralph’s jingling followed Sam to the door. When Sam answered it, he stared blandly at Bucky, opened his perfect mouth, and announced “Hey, Steve, I’ve got Sasquatch in a man bun at the front door. And he looks like he drinks craft beer. Can I throw him out?”

“What are you talking about? Sasquatch… oh, Bucky, hi!” Steve burst into giggles again, which, admittedly was cute, except it was at Bucky’s expense, and Bucky made a mental note that maybe he could stand to shave and make a trip to his barber for a trim.

“I thought you couldn’t have gluten, Steve.”

“Sam’s kidding around,” Steve assured Bucky as he led him inside, edging past Sam, who was playfully trying to keep him out. “I already made us some salmon and a salad.”

“This man’s been pushing plates of rabbit food under my nose as long as I’ve known him,” Sam accused. “If I don’t order the pizza, he’ll let me waste away to a husk. With all this bougie salmon nonsense.”

“Don’t let Sam convince you he ain’t bougie,” Steve teased. “He just showed up here drinking alkaline water a few minutes ago, like city water’s too good for him.”

“City water will _kill you_ , Steven.” Ralph followed them all back to the kitchen, where Bucky removed his shoes. Sam smirked at the gesture. “I see you’ve got him trained.”

“If you think I’m setting foot on those carpets in these kicks, pal, you’re crazy,” Bucky confirmed. Sam’s smile widened, and he gave him a long-suffering nod. Ralph was whining for Sam’s attention, having only given Bucky a brief greeting before he went back to the man in perfectly creased slacks and a snug, burnt orange turtleneck sweater that Steve was staring at with goo-goo eyes. Sam was ridiculously handsome, and he made it seem effortless. The cheekbones, the eyelashes, the firm, expressive brows, those _arms_... it was no wonder that Steve turned into a giggling goofball around him. And they weren’t even dating anymore.

“You’re smarter than you look,” Sam told him. Then, he turned to Steve and gave him a little side hug. “Hey. I’m gonna jet. Call me when you feel like checking out that Thai place we talked about.”

“I’ll put it on the list.” Then, he glanced at Bucky. “Or, y’know. Bucky can. He’s the one who maintains my calendar, now. He’s a natural.”

“Think you’re already overbooked for this week, Stevie,” Bucky lied.

“You think I don’t know this man’s got a lot on his plate? As long as I’ve known him, I’ve just been the gravy, just spilling off the edge,” Sam told him. Steve gave him a rueful little smile, and Sam kissed his cheek. The gesture was easy, and they looked good together, and Bucky pretended it didn’t piss him off when Steve kissed him back, just a soft peck on the mouth, but Bucky could tell he wished it was more.

“Don’t be a stranger, Sammy.”

“Hey, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Be as strange as you want,” Bucky suggested. 

Sam and Steve sprang apart and hooted with laughter. Sam shook his finger at Bucky. “You got me. Nice one, Man Bun.” Sam headed for the door, stepped into his loafers, and grabbed his car keys from the front hook. “Steve, take care. Call me when you need.”

“Okay, Sam.” Steve followed him to the door and let him out. Ralph, now devoid of his other favorite houseguest, was now sniffing at Bucky and trying to steal his attention from his daddy.

“Traitor,” Bucky muttered to him, but the dog was wagging his tail, still thrilled with the attention, and when he knelt down to greet him, Ralph was his usual licky self. “I see how you are.”

“He adores Sam. I think he loves him more than me.” Steve stared affectionately at his dog. “I ain’t even mad at him.”

Because of course he wasn’t.

“You didn’t have any mail today.”

“I don’t hate hearing that.” Then, Steve realized, “Hey. Have you eaten yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Want some salmon? There’s salad, too, and Sam was messing around, acting like I didn’t make some potatoes, too, like I don’t know how to feed him properly when he comes here. The nerve of some people.”

“That sounds good, Stevie.”

“It sure isn’t burnt grilled cheese,” Steve kidded. He quirked his brow at Bucky, making him sigh.

“Yeah. About that. I know those might not be my stories to tell, if you don’t want me to.”

“Why wouldn’t I? We grew up together. Just don’t tell them to the tabloids.” Steve plated portions of salmon, roasted red potatoes and a fussy looking salad of spring greens, cheese crumbles, and a few vegetables that Bucky didn’t recognize. 

“Can I have the crew air some photos of you from middle school, then?”

“Don’t push your luck, pal.”

“I miss your old haircut. The one with the bangs.”

“I didn’t have bangs!”

“Yes, you did! They were all floppy and everything.”

Steve huffed, rolling his eyes, and he blushed a little at the memory. “Jerk,” he muttered. Then, though, he added, “Can’t believe I’m being lectured by a guy in a man bun…”

“Ooooooo! Can you believe him, Ralph?! Are you really talking shit about my hair?”

“Go ahead and whip it back and forth a little…” But Steve grinned at him and motioned for Bucky to sit on one of the barstools at the counter. “Bon appetit.”

Appetizing aromas of roasted garlic and rosemary wafted up from the plate, and Bucky speared one of the fingerling potatoes and popped it into his mouth. “Mmmmmm…” he moaned. “That’s heaven. So good.”

“You like that?” Steve looked pleased.

“I know I work for you, but I want you to cook for me forever. And the salmon just falls apart. My plate and I need to be alone for a few minutes…”

That made Steve giggle again, and Bucky realized that he enjoyed that sound. And Sam wasn’t the only one capable of bringing it out.

“Speaking of which…”

“Let me guess. Groceries.”

“No, not yet. But, I need you to email Ororo about her guest spot on the show for Christmas week. I need to talk to her about Wardrobe and her size for the stuff she’s going to wear.”

“Are you seriously doing one of those cheesy Christmas baking specials like they do on Food Network?”

“Yes, because they sell ad space and people love them, and I have no soul left,” Steve joked. “C’mon. It’s not _that_ cheesy. It’s fun. At least, it can be. It’s just a lot of work.” Ralph was wagging his tail, trying to get a better look at Bucky’s plate, but Steve scolded him. “Quit that. You know you can’t have salmon, Ralph. Go lay down.” Ralph whined, but Bucky gave him a mock-sad face.

“Too bad, so sad, buddy.”

“So, you’ll email her?”

“That’s fine.”

“Sharon and Monica know what to ask for, Check in with them before you do.”

“That’s fine.”

“We’re going to take some promotional photos of the bakery, too, to have on the air. Book an appointment for Ororo to meet with the photographer.”

“That’s fine, Steve.”

“You should be writing this down.”

“I’m writing it down in my head.”

“Repeat what I just said.”

“You should be writing this down.”

Steve sighed, shaking his head. “C’mon, Buck. Work with me.”

“Email Ororo about her size. Ask Sharon and Monica about what to ask for. Book an appointment for Ororo for the photo shoot of the bakery so we can have some shots to show on the air for her guest spot. Did I miss anything?”

“Hm.” Steve nodded, shrugging. “Okay.”

When Steve left the kitchen to fetch his ledger, though, Bucky found the scratch pad hanging from a magnet on the fridge and wrote out the very list Steve grilled him on and crammed it into his pocket before he returned. Steve only saw him innocently poking at his salad.

“What the heck did you put in this?”

“A little edamame. A little jicama. And a few other things.”

“This is pretty bougie.”

“Shut up and eat your vegetables, Barnes.”

“Now you sound like your ma.”

Steve looked tickled by that. “Wanna hear something funny? She asked about you. I hadn’t even told her that you work for me yet, and she just mentioned your name out of the blue.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Only the good stuff.”

“Bet that was a short list.”

Steve’s brows drew together. “She was glad to hear about you. It’s been a while. Some things are just so crazy and random that the universe decides that they have to happen. Maybe it was fate that you went to that temp agency on that particular day.”

“Sure. Maybe it was fate that you fired your last assistant at just the right time.” 

Because Bucky wasn’t a big believer in fate, miracles, kismet, or any of that jazz. What were the odds that he would meet Steve in the same city, after years of no contact, never running into any of their mutual friends, and that he would end up working for him? At least a million to one.

Steve shook his head, though, and this time, he just looked sad. His posture stiffened up and he rubbed his nape, and Bucky realized he pricked a sore spot.

“Things were good at first, but sometimes, things just don’t work. Even when you hope like heck that they will, Buck.” Steve began to clean up the stove and put away the leftovers. “You can’t force things to work out the way you want. Brock wasn’t meant to stick around, and if it meant I’d get to see you again after all these years, well. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”

“Sure ain’t, Stevie.”

Bucky had so many questions. How had Sam felt about Brock? What did Brock do to get fired? Or did Brock quit? Bucky wanted the juicy details, but he was afraid to ask the source, because it was hard to see Steve make that face. Rueful. Wounded. It made Bucky ask himself the question, _Who do I need to punch in the face?_

Bucky was headed back to the studio, anyway. Time to do a little digging.

*

“Oh, my God. Brock was an asshole,” Sharon exclaimed. “He was just this… social climbing, smarmy, grasping… Mon, would you say he was grasping?”

“Oh, girl. Brock. Whoo! That boy was a _hot mess_. Dipping into the till, using the company card for personal gifts, name-dropping Steve to get into clubs, you name it. I wasn’t sad to see him go.” Monica elbowed her knowingly. “Let the trash take itself out.”

“And he didn’t listen to Steve. Even about little things. You know Steve just likes things the way he likes them. Because that’s just _Steve_ , but he’s a great, big sweetheart,” Sharon gushed. “He dressed up as Captain America and visited the children’s hospital last fall. They loved it. And he passed out gift baskets to the staff.”

*

“Brock? Couldn’t stand that guy,” Pietro told Bucky as he cut open a box of promotional merch. “He always double-parked and stole my parking space. He’d breeze into meetings late and then talk over everybody else instead of just taking minutes.”

*

“He spent so much time at Steve’s house, after hours. Not just for house sitting, but just in general. He should have been at the office. He ran up Steve’s utility bills and burned up the gas in his tank. He’d use his car for personal business. He was just bad news. _Bad_ , bad news,” Pepper insisted while she signed Bucky’s timecard. “He had to go. He just brought bad energy to the table.”

*

“His aura was pitch black,” Wanda mentioned as she stocked the film set with cooking utensils and fresh dishes. “And he was getting too familiar with Tim before he and Steve broke things off.”

“Tim?”

“Tim Dugan. Steve’s last ex.”

“I thought his last ex was Sam.”

“Oh, no, Sam was an angel. That’s why they’re still so close. Tim was the rebound boyfriend. A space filler. Tell me how you can date _Steve_ and still have a wandering eye,” Wanda scoffed.

“A wandering eye?” Bucky scowled.

“You don’t even wanna know…”

*

Piotr arranged some garnish atop a cheesecake with a gingersnap crust as he gave Bucky the lowdown.

“Caught with their pants down. Steve doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Jesus…”

“I don’t know if Steve was more upset about the fact that his assistant was porking his boyfriend, or that they made a mess of his house.” Pietro shrugged. “I mean, you can find a new man on Tinder, but it’s hard to get the smell of beer out of carpet.”

“But, seriously, Steve walked in on that in his own house?!”

“Uh-huh. That’s why he has trust issues.” Piotr drizzled the cake with some glaze and adjusted the lighting around it, setting it up for a promotional photo. “I mean, he did _before_ , don’t get me wrong. He doesn’t like wearing his heart on his sleeve. I always get the impression that he’s had it broken before.”

That made Bucky’s roam in unwanted directions. His memory flashed back, just for a moment, to the feel of gravel beneath his whizzing bike wheels in the dark, of a younger Steve who dared to trust him with _everything_. Just standing there, calling after him from the porch.

*

Bucky emailed Ororo, and she referred him to her own seamstress for her measurements and preferences. “She knows me,” she told Bucky. “They don’t make decent jeans for women my height, or skirts that don’t give up all the goods if I so much as sneeze. She’ll let you know what I need.” Nailing down the time for the photo shoot was easy enough; Ororo just told them to send the photographer over that afternoon for some candid shots so she wouldn’t have to interrupt her week. They took some lighting equipment over and captured some great takes. Bucky’s favorite was the one of Ororo and Jubilee making jazz hands toward a huge tower of profiteroles.

*

Becca called him later that week. “When are you going to let me come and watch a taping?”

“I don’t have that kind of cred, Becs. I’ve only been here three weeks. Half the time, I’m so busy, I don’t even get to watch the tapings myself.”

“C’mon, Bucky! Someone has to owe you a favor. You can’t get anybody to comp you some tickets for me and Mark?”

“Get real, Becca.”

“It could be my Christmas gift,” she wheedled.

“You think I’m actually getting you a gift?”

“Asshole!”

Bucky snickered.

“Speaking of… are you coming home for the holiday?”

“Yours or Ma’s?”

“Either. Both. Will you even be off?”

“I’m not sure yet. I really need to check with Steve. This month is going to be busy for the show. I’m running errands like crazy.” Bucky had to add picking up the poinsettias from the floral shop to his list, the big box of mini Christmas stockings for the staff, since Kitty wanted to set up a decorating table for everybody to make their own in the staff lounge, and another dry cleaning run. Bucky knew Steve was running on caffeine and not much else, lately. Bucky had to move a few things around on his schedule and force him to go to his yoga class just to calm him down one day. 

“Let me know if you want to go over there together. I still want to go to a taping of your show.”

“It’s _Steve’s_ show.”

Becca made an aggrieved noise. “You’re such a poop.”

“Love you, too.”

*

For the most part, Steve wasn’t _terrible_ to work with, but the holidays were wearing him thin. Bucky went out of his way not to make him ask for things twice, but every once in a while, he was short with him, or at least passive aggressively sarcastic.

“Boy, this coffee sure tastes… could I call this aged? Not the beans themselves, but just, the _age_ of the coffee? Did you grow the beans yourself in Peru, Buck? Did you harvest them and roast them for that distinctive woodiness?”

“I got caught in traffic on Ninth Street, pal.”

“This coffee tastes like it has an AARP subscription and it wears arch supports.”

“That’s just cold, Stevie.”

“No, Bucky, the _coffee_ is cold.”

“Steve?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you need a break?”

Steve snorted up at him from his desk, which Bucky was trying to help him organize, thinning out the mail pile by throwing out the junk and organizing statements and invoices. But there was still a pile, nevertheless. Bucky offered him a sympathetic smile. “Seriously, Steve, do you need a breather?”

“There’s no time, Bucky-”

“Sure, there is. Make time. You already filmed today.”

“I need to test a couple of recipes for tomorrow’s show.”

“Which you can do. _After_ you take a _break_.”

“Bucky, that’s-”

“A good idea.”

“It’s a waste of time! I have too much to do! You don’t get it. I don’t expect you to get it.”

“Why not?”

“Because!” Steve leaned back in his seat and threw up his hands, and that gesture made Bucky notice that the snug knit of his long-sleeved jersey clung to his arms and chest, until Bucky schooled himself to look at Steve’s face, and the little furrow between his brows. _Oops._ There was that tension around the mouth, and his eyes were doing that _thing_ that told Bucky that Steve was in a bad headspace. Stressed. Doubting himself. Riding a wave of Impostor Syndrome. “Just… if I don’t keep up with everything that I need to do today, it’ll be a clusterfuck. Nobody needs that. I have a show, and a blog, and decisions to make on the holiday merch and the-”

“Not for the next hour.”

“What?”

“Not. For. The next. Hour. Steve.”

“I can’t-”

“Yes, you can.”

“I-”

“Steve.”

“Bucky!”

“Steve. Enough. Stop that. Put that down. Put that down, too. Quit it. C’mon. Get up.”

“What are you… Bucky. I need that. I’m not done with… okay. This is just… this is bullshit.”

“Not taking a breather when you’re the boss is bullshit. What’s the point of being the boss if you don’t? Like, _ever_?” Bucky accused. He wrested Steve out of his seat, which was no small chore, swatted the stack of letters and Steve’s pens from his hands, and tugged him across the room. Steve looked equal parts irritated and shocked at first, but he folded his arms across his chest when Bucky held his jacket out to him. 

“I ain’t goin’.”

“You ain’t got a choice, pal.”

Bucky could see Steve at war with himself, could almost feel Steve’s desk tugging at him to remain, like man and object were opposite poles. 

After several seconds Steve rolled his eyes, Bucky grinned, and he wrestled him into his jacket.

“Quit twisting my arm…”

“This is gonna be great!” 

And Bucky knew it probably looked odd, the way he tugged Steve along down the hall past his staff, and he was being a little handsy, when he thought about it, but it made warmth glow in his chest, this prospect of being able to monopolize the Busiest Man on the Planet for the next sixty minutes.

Bucky ignored Steve’s claim that “You can probably let go of me, now.”

“You might run,” Bucky argued, as he gave Steve’s arm a fond squeeze. Steve sighed, but he smirked, and then shrugged as the elevator cruised past each floor and then dinged at the lobby.

“Where are we going?”

“To have fun.”

“I don’t get to-”

“Nope.”

“Why did I hire you, again?”

“Technically, Pepper hired me.”

Which wasn’t completely accurate. Bucky had another week until he received the offer of permanent employment, including all the benefits, bells and whistles.

Steve looked a little confused when Bucky led him to his own Mustang instead of the Navigator. “Why are we taking your car?”

“If I let you drive, we won’t make it to where I planned, and this is a surprise, goofy butt.”

“My butt is _not_ goofy.”

Bucky opened his mouth to argue, then closed it and shrugged. “Fair.”

Steve narrowed his eyes at Bucky for a moment, then chuckled. “Jerk…”

Bucky took them first to the Starbucks drive-thru and got them fresh drinks. “Two caramel apple ciders, please. Grande. Extra caramel.”

“I really don’t do a lot of sugar-”

“EXTRA caramel,” Bucky insisted, and he glanced back at Steve and stuck out his tongue.

“Extra caramel,” Steve mouthed at Bucky, mimicking him and screwing up his face.

But he made an approving noise when he sipped his, and they made their way through midday traffic to the downtown mall. Bucky circled the block about three times before he found a metered parking space on the street.

“You’re cutting into your hour, buddy.” Steve tapped his watch. “You’ve already used up ten minutes.”

“Oh, so we’re playing that game?” Bucky teased. “Okay. Fine. When we have _so much fun_ out here today, and you’re begging me not to take you back to the office, we’ll see if you keep clock watching, pal.”

“You haven’t even said where we’re going, yet!”

“I’ll let you figure it out.” Bucky unbuckled Steve’s seatbelt for him and leaned in to release it. “Hold on, stay there.” Bucky hurried out of his side, closed his door, then circled around the front of the car to the curb and then opened Steve’s door for him with a dramatic flourish. “Allow me to assist you, Gov’nor.”

“Geez… you’re such a cheeseball.”

“Yes, but I’m _your_ cheeseball,” Bucky said. “Let’s just clarify that. At your service.”

It was just so nice to hear Steve laugh. To see those little crinkles around his eyes as Bucky tugged him up by the hand and locked the doors. 

As they went through the tunnel between the high-rise buildings and reached the courtyard, Bucky said, “This is it.”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be _kidding_ me.”

“What? When’s the last time you can tell me you went ice skating?”

“Since the last time I fractured my wrist when we were twelve??? Probably not since then?”

“Pssshhh… c’mon, Stevie.”

“Don’t you ‘C’mon, Stevie’ me, Bucky. I suck at ice skating. Always have.”

“But, you used to have fun doing it.”

“Until I busted my wrist. That might have made the gloss wear off a little.”

“How about if we start out slow?”

“Bucky.”

“I’ll let you hold on to me,” Bucky reasoned. “It’ll be fine. I _promise_.”

The ice rink was crowded already, despite the time of day. Half of the city looked like they turned out for a spin around the ice to Top Forty music and to eat overprice concession snacks. The rink was decorated for Christmas, with all the light poles wrapped in tinsel garland and festooned with wreaths and red bows. It wasn’t exactly Norman Rockwell, but it was festive and upbeat, and in Bucky’s opinion, just what Steve needed to get a reprieve from the office and from behind the camera.

“C’mon. It’ll be fun. I _promise_.”

Steve gave him a long suffering look before throwing up his hands. “YAY!” Bucky whooped before he dragged them along to the admission counter.

“Two?”

“Uh-huh.”

“There’s your tickets. You can rent the skates over there. The ticket is also your claim for your shoes when you’re finished. You two get an hour.”

“We won’t need that long…”

“Quit it, Stevie. C’mon. Let’s have fun.”

Fun.

They snagged a table in the seating area and put on the skates. “If I bust an ankle in these things, it’s your fault,” Steve told him.

“So, I’ll just carry you around, then.”

Steve snorted again.

“Remember when I used to be able to pick you up?”

Piggyback rides. Random challenges of _I bet I can pick you up, Stevie._ That time Bucky fireman carried him when he sprained his ankle sliding in wet grass when they were playing field hockey.

“You were pint-sized,” Bucky added. “Not built like a tank like you are now.”

“Clean living,” Steve told him. “I went to an allergist when I was in college. Changed my diet. Stopped being sick all the time, and my growth spurt kicked in freshman year.”

“Did it _ever_.”

“Yeah, yeah. Well. It helped. That’s one of the reasons I emphasize organic ingredients and avoiding a lot of processed crap when I do the show. I want people to be able to use stuff they can afford, but I don’t want to give them a hundred different ways to fix Cheetos and Spam.”

“Not everybody can afford prosciutto for a hundred and twenty bucks a pound.”

“Nobody should have to. My mom raised me on a single mom’s budget, even though it was a nurse’s budget, but it took a while to get there.”

Which just explained so much about Steve.

They click-clicked their way on the skinny metal blades to the rink’s entry, and Bucky led the way. He wobbled a little at first, sliding with the momentum, but he steadied himself. Steve looked mulish as he gripped the handrail and inched onto the ice. “This was _such_ a bad idea.” 

“Take it easy.” Bucky was still trying to catch his own balance and equilibrium, but it had been a while for him, too. But it was a bright winter day, and he wanted Steve to enjoy it. The air felt brisk, maybe a little colder since they were on the ice, now, but the sun shone overhead, and the smells of pretzels, hot dogs, churros and hot cocoa was tempting. 

Steve pulled himself along by the hand rail, like he was climbing a horizontal rope, until Bucky finally said, “Just hold onto me, okay?”

“Bucky…”

“It’s fine. Don’t stay all bent over like that, it’s bad for your back.”

“Bucky, this wasn’t a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Bucky finally pried his hands off the rail - gently - and hooked one of them around his own upper arm. “Trust me.”

“What has that ever gotten me except cruel, usually embarrassing consequences in the history of our friendship?” Steve joked, but, Bucky decided, to his credit, Steve was _smiling_. Hesitant, flustered, but that was a smile. And his grip on Bucky felt warm and solid.

“You remember how to do this. Push off. Let yourself glide… glide, Stevie! Okay. Just a little push. That’s it.”

“This is ridiculous. Don’t you dare come to my funeral-”

“Out of all your friends, I know you the best. Who better to write your eulogy?”

“No. No. I’ll have Piotr and Kitty kick you out.” Then Steve added, “And sue you for libel.”

“Awwww. Stevie. C’mon.” Bucky was tugging them along on a halting glide, now, and Steve’s tension began to ebb. Slightly. “This isn’t so bad, is it?”

“This is just… don’t go too fast.”

“I won’t. Pretty soon, you’ll be out here doing a triple lutz.”

Steve muttered something unintelligible but no doubt less than flattering under his breath. Bucky laughed as they rounded the curve.

By the time they finished the first lap, Steve relaxed a little more and actually started to move his feet, not quite the glide-push that Bucky managed, more of a choppy shuffle, making him look like a five-year-old with an overactive gland. By the third lap, he finally eased his death grip on Bucky’s arm, but he didn’t let go. Steve had a few slips that didn’t quite turn into stumbles, and Bucky caught him close every time, despite Steve’s hisses of “People are staring, Buck!”

Their cheeks grew rosy from the cold air, and their eyes were shining from laughter.

“My toes are getting numb. I’d forgotten about that.”

“Next time, I’ll get you some nice, thick, fuzzy socks.”

“Oh, we aren’t doing this again.”

“Says you. You’re enjoying yourself. Admit it!”

“I should be going through invoices right about now.”

“They’ll be there waiting for you when you get back. They aren’t going anywhere.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

“Well, don’t. Just for a few minutes, Steve, don’t. Look, I’ll help you with whatever you want when we get back. I promise. But, I want you to just relax a little for now. Don’t worry about choosing graphics or test recipes or filming or any of that.”

Steve sighed. “I’m the one who has to handle the things on my plate, Bucky. And I can, I can manage it, I just have to line everything up a certain way... “

“Like with your lists. And keeping everything neat so you can find it. Controlling your immediate environment. I get it. I do. And that’s fine. But, taking a few turns with your oldest friend - your handsomest, coolest friend, I might add - on the ice and just letting your hair down is good for you.”

“Sam might have some opinions about the validity of your claim,” Steve told him simply. “He _is_ pretty cool, and he’s _definitely_ handsome.”

“He’s okay.”

Steve snickered and clutched Bucky’s shoulder in earnest, then yelped as a pair of middle schoolers dashed past them. That made him skid and cling to Bucky, knocking him off balance.

“Shoot! GAH!”

Bucky stumbled. Steve caught him, and they did a little shaky twirl, finally managing to still themselves, but they were a flailing pile of limbs for a few seconds, and Steve realized how tightly he was gripping Bucky. Bucky was grinning and laughing breathlessly, and it made his eyes crinkle and his nose scrunch, and were those _dimples_ in his cheeks. And he was just glowing, for a minute, triggering memories.

Summer camp. A family vacation to Cape Cod. Trying to guess who sent Bucky the red carnations on Valentine’s Day. The time Bucky talked Steve into a Mohawk, and they tried to liberty spike it at home, with appalling results. The first time Bucky picked up Steve to take him for a ride after he got his driver’s license. 

“Shit, I hate that feeling of being jolted like that,” Bucky admitted.

“Man, me too. Okay. Have we had enough fun for today?”

“Not yet. One more lap. Wait. Two. TWO more laps. Then we can call it a day if you want.”

“If I fall, Buck, i’m worried I won’t get back up.”

“You sound like a sixty-year-old man right now. But, that’s fine. Just a couple more laps, and we can go. But we got out. We got some fresh air.”

And Steve silently admitted to himself that he was right. His head felt clearer, and he just felt like he was where he needed to be, with Bucky still gripping him, laughing beside him, surrounded by mall traffic and hearing the songs change to Christmas music that would no doubt stay stuck in his head for the rest of the day.

*


End file.
